Spin alignment measurements of the K*0(892) and (1020) vector mesons in heavy ion collisions at sNN=200 GeV

B. I. Abelev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, B. D. Anderson, D. Arkhipkin, G. S. Averichev, Y. Bai, J. Balewski, O. Barannikova, L. S. Barnby, J. Baudot, S. Baumgart, D. R. Beavis, R. Bellwied, F. Benedosso, R. R. Betts, S. Bhardwaj, A. Bhasin, A. K. Bhati, H. BichselJ. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, B. Biritz, L. C. Bland, M. Bombara, B. E. Bonner, M. Botje, J. Bouchet, E. Braidot, A. V. Brandin, S. Bueltmann, T. P. Burton, M. Bystersky, X. Z. Cai, H. Caines, M. Calderón De La Barca Sánchez, J. Callner, O. Catu, D. Cebra, R. Cendejas, M. C. Cervantes, Z. Chajecki, P. Chaloupka, S. Chattopadhyay, H. F. Chen, J. H. Chen, J. Y. Chen, J. Cheng, M. Cherney, A. Chikanian, K. E. Choi, W. Christie, S. U. Chung, R. F. Clarke, M. J.M. Codrington, J. P. Coffin, T. M. Cormier, M. R. Cosentino, J. G. Cramer, H. J. Crawford, D. Das, S. Dash, M. Daugherity, M. M.De Moura, T. G. Dedovich, M. Dephillips, A. A. Derevschikov, R. Derradi De Souza, L. Didenko, T. Dietel, P. Djawotho, S. M. Dogra, X. Dong, J. L. Drachenberg, J. E. Draper, F. Du, J. C. Dunlop, M. R.Dutta Mazumdar, W. R. Edwards, L. G. Efimov, E. Elhalhuli, M. Elnimr, V. Emelianov, J. Engelage, G. Eppley, B. Erazmus, M. Estienne, L. Eun, P. Fachini, R. Fatemi, J. Fedorisin, A. Feng, P. Filip, E. Finch, V. Fine, Y. Fisyak, C. A. Gagliardi, L. Gaillard, D. R. Gangadharan, M. S. Ganti, E. Garcia-Solis, V. Ghazikhanian, P. Ghosh, Y. N. Gorbunov, A. Gordon, O. Grebenyuk, D. Grosnick, B. Grube, S. M. Guertin, K. S.F.F. Guimaraes, A. Gupta, N. Gupta, W. Guryn, B. Haag, T. J. Hallman, A. Hamed, J. W. Harris, W. He, M. Heinz, S. Heppelmann, B. Hippolyte, A. Hirsch, A. M. Hoffman, G. W. Hoffmann, D. J. Hofman, R. S. Hollis, H. Z. Huang, E. W. Hughes, T. J. Humanic, G. Igo, A. Iordanova, P. Jacobs, W. W. Jacobs, P. Jakl, F. Jin, P. G. Jones, E. G. Judd, S. Kabana, K. Kajimoto, K. Kang, J. Kapitan, M. Kaplan, D. Keane, A. Kechechyan, D. Kettler, V. Yu Khodyrev, J. Kiryluk, A. Kisiel, S. R. Klein, A. G. Knospe, A. Kocoloski, D. D. Koetke, T. Kollegger, M. Kopytine, L. Kotchenda, V. Kouchpil, P. Kravtsov, V. I. Kravtsov, K. Krueger, C. Kuhn, A. Kumar, L. Kumar, P. Kurnadi, M. A.C. Lamont, J. M. Landgraf, S. Lange, S. LaPointe, F. Laue, J. Lauret, A. Lebedev, R. Lednicky, C. H. Lee, M. J. LeVine, C. Li, Y. Li, G. Lin, X. Lin, S. J. Lindenbaum, M. A. Lisa, F. Liu, H. Liu, J. Liu, L. Liu, T. Ljubicic, W. J. Llope, R. S. Longacre, W. A. Love, Y. Lu, T. Ludlam, D. Lynn, G. L. Ma, J. G. Ma, Y. G. Ma, D. P. Mahapatra, R. Majka, L. K. Mangotra, R. Manweiler, S. Margetis, C. Markert, H. S. Matis, Yu A. Matulenko, T. S. McShane, A. Meschanin, J. Millane, M. L. Miller, N. G. Minaev, S. Mioduszewski, A. Mischke, J. Mitchell, B. Mohanty, D. A. Morozov, M. G. Munhoz, B. K. Nandi, C. Nattrass, T. K. Nayak, J. M. Nelson, C. Nepali, P. K. Netrakanti, M. J. Ng, L. V. Nogach, S. B. Nurushev, G. Odyniec, A. Ogawa, H. Okada, V. Okorokov, D. Olson, M. Pachr, S. K. Pal, Y. Panebratsev, T. Pawlak, T. Peitzmann, V. Perevoztchikov, C. Perkins, W. Peryt, S. C. Phatak, M. Planinic, J. Pluta, N. Poljak, N. Porile, A. M. Poskanzer, M. Potekhin, B. V.K.S. Potukuchi, D. Prindle, C. Pruneau, N. K. Pruthi, J. Putschke, I. A. Qattan, R. Raniwala, S. Raniwala, R. L. Ray, A. Ridiger, H. G. Ritter, J. B. Roberts, O. V. Rogachevskiy, J. L. Romero, A. Rose, C. Roy, L. Ruan, M. J. Russcher, V. Rykov, R. Sahoo, I. Sakrejda, T. Sakuma, S. Salur, J. Sandweiss, M. Sarsour, J. Schambach, R. P. Scharenberg, N. Schmitz, J. Seger, I. Selyuzhenkov, P. Seyboth, A. Shabetai, E. Shahaliev, M. Shao, M. Sharma, S. S. Shi, X. H. Shi, E. P. Sichtermann, F. Simon, R. N. Singaraju, M. J. Skoby, N. Smirnov, R. Snellings, P. Sorensen, J. Sowinski, H. M. Spinka, B. Srivastava, A. Stadnik, T. D.S. Stanislaus, D. Staszak, R. Stock, M. Strikhanov, B. Stringfellow, A. A.P. Suaide, M. C. Suarez, N. L. Subba, M. Sumbera, X. M. Sun, Z. Sun, B. Surrow, T. J.M. Symons, A. Szanto De Toledo, J. Takahashi, A. H. Tang, Z. Tang, T. Tarnowsky, D. Thein, J. H. Thomas, J. Tian, A. R. Timmins, S. Timoshenko, M. Tokarev, T. A. Trainor, V. N. Tram, A. L. Trattner, S. Trentalange, R. E. Tribble, O. D. Tsai, J. Ulery, T. Ullrich, D. G. Underwood, G. Van Buren, N. Van Der Kolk, M. Van Leeuwen, A. M.Vander Molen, R. Varma, G. M.S. Vasconcelos, I. M. Vasilevski, A. N. Vasiliev, F. Videbaek, S. E. Vigdor, Y. P. Viyogi, S. Vokal, S. A. Voloshin, M. Wada, W. T. Waggoner, F. Wang, G. Wang, J. S. Wang, Q. Wang, X. Wang, X. L. Wang, Y. Wang, J. C. Webb, G. D. Westfall, C. Whitten, H. Wieman, S. W. Wissink, R. Witt, J. Wu, Y. Wu, N. Xu, Q. H. Xu, Z. Xu, P. Yepes, I. K. Yoo, Q. Yue, M. Zawisza, H. Zbroszczyk, W. Zhan, H. Zhang, S. Zhang, W. M. Zhang, Y. Zhang, Z. P. Zhang, Y. Zhao, C. Zhong, J. Zhou, R. Zoulkarneev, Y. Zoulkarneeva, J. X. Zuo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

63 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present the first spin alignment measurements for the K*0(892) and (1020) vector mesons produced at midrapidity with transverse momenta up to 5 GeV/c at sNN=200 GeV at RHIC. The diagonal spin-density matrix elements with respect to the reaction plane in Au+Au collisions are ρ00=0.32±0.04 (stat) ± 0.09 (syst) for the K*0 (0.8<pT<5.0 GeV/c) and ρ00=0.34±0.02 (stat) ± 0.03 (syst) for the (0.4<pT<5.0 GeV/c) and are constant with transverse momentum and collision centrality. The data are consistent with the unpolarized expectation of 1/3 and thus no evidence is found for the transfer of the orbital angular momentum of the colliding system to the vector-meson spins. Spin alignments for K*0 and in Au+Au collisions were also measured with respect to the particle's production plane. The result, ρ00=0.41±0.02 (stat) ± 0.04 (syst), is consistent with that in p+p collisions, ρ00=0.39±0.03 (stat) ± 0.06 (syst), also measured in this work. The measurements thus constrain the possible size of polarization phenomena in the production dynamics of vector mesons.

Original languageEnglish
Article number061902
JournalPhysical Review C - Nuclear Physics
Volume77
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 12 2008

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thank Dr. C. Lomnitz and an anonymous reviewer for suggestions that helped to improve an original version of the manuscript. This research was supported by a grant of Academia Sinica Institute of Earth Sciences, Taiwan.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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