Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Das, Kushal
Author's Email Address	kushal.cal@gmail.com
URN	etd-05122008-154326
Title	J/Psi -> e+e- Measurements In Cu + Cu Collisions at 200 GeV
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	Physics, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Volker Crede Committee Chair Anthony D. Frawley Committee Co-Chair Howie Baer Committee Member Sanford Safron Committee Member Simon Capstick Committee Member
Keywords	Heavy-Ion Collisions J/Psi Nuclear Physics
Date of Defense	2008-04-07
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract High-energy heavy-ion collisions are a powerful tool in the laboratory to investigate the phase transition from ordinary nuclear matter to a deconfined state of quarks and gluons, called the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), which is predicted to be formed above a temperature of order T_{c} ~ 170 MeV in lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Suppression of J/Psi production has long been considered to be one of the most promising signatures for the deconfinement of matter. J/Psi production has been measured by the PHENIX experiment, one of the two major experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in p + p, d + Au, Au + Au and Cu + Cu collisions at the center of mass energy per nucleon (sqrt {s_{NN}}) of 200 GeV. The analysis of the Cu + Cu data is the focus of this dissertation. Yields of J/Psi production in Cu + Cu collisions at sqrt {s_{NN}} = 200 GeV have been measured by the PHENIX experiment over the rapidity range |y| < 2.2 at transverse momenta from 0 to beyond 5 GeV/c. The invariant yield is obtained as a function of rapidity, transverse momentum and collision centrality, and compared with results in p + p and Au + Au collisions at the same energy. The Cu + Cu data provide greatly improved precision over existing Au + Au data for J/Psi production in collisions with small to intermediate numbers of participants, providing a key constraint that is needed for disentangling cold and hot nuclear matter effects.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    kushal_thesis.pdf 5.91 Mb 00:27:21 00:14:04 00:12:18 00:06:09 00:00:31