PHENIX Measurements of Light Hadron and Vector Meson Production at RHIC

TL;DR

This paper presents PHENIX measurements of light hadron and vector meson production in various nuclear collisions at RHIC, providing insights into hot and cold nuclear matter effects and testing empirical scaling behaviors.

Contribution

It reports new experimental data on identified hadrons and vector mesons across different collision systems and energies, comparing results with models and previous measurements.

Findings

Identified hadron yields vary with system size and centrality.

Vector meson production shows specific rapidity and energy dependence.

Scaling behaviors are tested against empirical and theoretical models.

Abstract

Measurements of light hadron production in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions provide essential insight into final-state effects arising from both hot and cold nuclear matter. They probe collective behavior, hadronization via recombination, and baryon and strangeness enhancement, while their system-size and centrality dependence constrain the role of initial-state geometry and nuclear parton distribution functions. In this talk, we present recent PHENIX measurements of identified charged hadrons ($\pi/K/p$) at midrapidity ($|y| < 0.35$) and low-mass vector mesons, including $\omega$, $\rho$, and $\phi$, at forward rapidity ($1.2 < |y| < 2.2$) in $p+p$, $p+$Al, $p/d/^{3}$He+Cu+Au, and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV, as well as U+U collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 193$ GeV. Tests of various empirical scaling behaviors, together with comparisons to previous measurements and theoretical model calculations, are discussed.