Phi Meson Measurements at RHIC with the PHENIX Detector

TL;DR

This paper reports on phi meson measurements at RHIC using the PHENIX detector, exploring medium effects in heavy ion collisions through dilepton channels and comparing results with theoretical models.

Contribution

It provides new systematic measurements of phi meson production across different collision systems at 200 GeV, including comparisons with AMPT model calculations.

Findings

Phi meson production varies with collision system and medium effects.

Data show consistency with AMPT model predictions for small systems.

Results enhance understanding of strangeness enhancement in heavy ion collisions.

Abstract

The measurement of phi mesons provides a unique and complementary method for exploring properties of the hot and dense medium created in the relativistic heavy ion collisions. It has a relatively small hadronic interaction cross section and is sensitive to the increase of strangeness (strangeness enhancement), a phenomenon associated with soft particles in bulk matter. Measurements in the dilepton channels are especially interesting since leptons interact only electromagnetically, thus carrying the information from their production phase directly to the detector. Measurements in different nucleus-nucleus collisions allow us to perform a systematic study of the nuclear medium effects on phi meson production. The PHENIX detector provides the capabilities to measure the phi meson production in a wide range of transverse momentum and rapidity to study these effects. In this proceeding, we present measurements of the phi mesons in a variety of collision systems at $\sqrt{s_NN} = 200$ GeV. In case of small systems, the data are compared with AMPT calculations to study the various cold nuclear medium effects involved in phi meson production.