Distortion of the HBT image by mean field interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how mean-field interactions influence the spacetime geometry of hadron sources in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, using HBT interferometry and a semiclassical approach to quantify distortions in pion correlation images.

Contribution

It introduces a model based on pion-pion scattering to quantify the impact of mean-field interactions on HBT radii in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Mean-field interactions significantly distort HBT images.

The model quantifies the extent of radius modifications.

Profiles of distorted images are explicitly illustrated.

Abstract

We study effects of a mean-field interaction on the spacetime geometry of the hadron source measured by utilizing the Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) interferometry in the ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We show how a modification of a pion amplitude, caused in the freeze-out process, is incorporated into the correlation function of the interferometry within a semiclassical method. Profiles of the distorted images are illustrated. To make a quantitative estimate of the effects, we construct a mean-field-interaction model on the basis of the pion-pion scattering amplitude, and then investigate to what extent the effects of the mean-field interaction acts to efficiently modify the HBT radii.