Coherence Time Effects on J/psi Production and Suppression in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This study investigates how coherence time influences J/psi production and suppression in relativistic heavy ion collisions, using experimental data to quantify these effects and compare with observed results.

Contribution

It introduces a coherence time parameter derived from proton-nucleus measurements to explain J/psi production patterns in nucleus-nucleus collisions.

Findings

Coherence time significantly impacts J/psi-to-Drell-Yan ratios.

Reproduces S+U collision data without new parameters.

Fails to match Pb+Pb collision data trends and magnitude.

Abstract

Using a coherence time extracted from high precision proton-nucleus Drell-Yan measurements and a nuclear absorption cross section extracted from pA charmonium production experiments, we study J/psi production and absorption in nucleus-nucleus collisions. We find that coherence time effects are large enough to affect the measured J/psi-to-Drell-Yan ratio. The S+U data at 200A GeV/c measured by NA38 are reproduced quantitatively without the introduction of any new parameters. However, when compared with recent NA50 measurements for Pb+Pb at 158A GeV/c, the data is not reproduced in trend or in magnitude.