Measurements of $$\pi ^\pm $$ , $$K^\pm $$ , p and $$\bar{p}$$ spectra in $$^{40}\hbox {Ar+}^{45}\hbox {Sc}$$ collisions at 13A to 150A $$\text{ Ge }\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text{ V }\!/\!c$$
H. Adhikary (Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland); P. Adrich (National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw, Poland); K. Allison (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA); N. Amin (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany); E. Andronov (Affiliated with an Institution Covered by a Cooperation Agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland); et al - Show all 154 authors
The NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron studies the onset of deconfinement in strongly interacting matter through a beam energy scan of particle production in collisions of nuclei of varied sizes. This paper presents results on inclusive double-differential spectra, transverse momentum and rapidity distributions and mean multiplicities of $$\pi ^\pm $$ , $$K^\pm $$ , p and $$\bar{p}$$ produced in $$^{40}\hbox {Ar+}^{45}\hbox {Sc}$$ collisions at beam momenta of 13A, 19A, 30A, 40A, 75A and 150A $$\text{ Ge }\hspace{-1.00006pt}\text{ V }\!/\!c$$ . The analysis uses the 10% most central collisions, where the observed forward energy defines centrality. The energy dependence of the $$K^\pm $$ / $$\pi ^\pm $$ ratios as well as of inverse slope parameters of the $$K^\pm $$ transverse mass distributions are placed in between those found in inelastic $$p+p$$ and central Pb + Pb collisions. The results obtained here establish a system-size dependence of hadron production properties that so far cannot be explained either within statistical or dynamical models.
