Search for Muonic Atoms at RHIC

TL;DR

This paper reports on the search for muonic atoms in high-energy gold-gold collisions at RHIC, using muon identification and correlation analysis to detect signals and study their production mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a novel search for muonic atoms at RHIC, utilizing invariant mass spectra and correlation techniques to identify signals and analyze production characteristics.

Findings

Clear signals observed at expected atom masses

Daughter particles produced at same space-time point

Primordial muon fraction extracted from correlations

Abstract

We present the search results for muonic atoms on $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV Au+Au collisions collected by the STAR experiment at RHIC. With the muon identification at low momentum, the invariant mass spectra were reconstructed. Clear signals are observed at the expected atom masses. Two particle correlations show that the production of the daughter particles happens at the same space-time point, presenting the signature of atom ionization. The fraction of primordial muons is extracted from $\pi$-$\mu$ correlations.