Phys. Rev. C 70, 031902 (2004) [6 pages]

Production of e+e pairs accompanied by nuclear dissociation in ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions

Download: PDF (249 kB) or Buy this Article (Use Article Pack) Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

J. Adams et al. STAR Collaboration
Show All Authors/Affiliations

Rapid Communication Received 7 April 2004; published 28 September 2004

We present data on e+e pair production accompanied by nuclear breakup in ultraperipheral gold-gold collisions at a center of mass energy of 200  GeV per nucleon pair. The nuclear breakup requirement selects events at small impact parameters, where higher-order diagrams for pair production should be enhanced. We compare the data with two calculations: one based on the equivalent photon approximation, and the other using lowest-order quantum electrodynamics (QED). The data distributions agree with both calculations, except that the pair transverse momentum spectrum disagrees with the equivalent photon approach. We set limits on higher-order contributions to the cross section.


©2004 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevC.70.031902
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.70.031902
PACS: 25.75.Dw, 12.20.−m, 25.20.Lj

* URL: http://www.star.bnl.gov

[ Abstract  |  Previous article  |  Next article  |  Issue 3 ]