Three pion correlations in heavy-ion collisions at the CERN SPS (NA44)

摘要

pi(+)pi(+)pi(+) correlations from S + Pb collisions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon are presented as measured by the focusing spectrometer of the NA44 experiment at CERN. Three-particle correlation function is sensitive to phases not present in two-particle correlations. We report a first direct measurement of these phases. It is found to be [cos phi] = 0.71 +/- 0.15, where the error is statistical only. [References: 9]