Lévy Femtoscopy with PHENIX at RHIC

Abstract

In this paper we present the measurement of charged pion two-particle femtoscopic correlation functions in s N N = 200 GeV Au + Au collisions in 31 average transverse mass bins, separately for positive and negative pion pairs. Lévy-shaped source distributions yield a statistically acceptable description of the measured correlation functions, with three physical parameters: correlation strength parameter λ , Lévy index α and Lévy scale parameter R. The transverse mass dependence of these Lévy parameters is then investigated. Their physical interpretation is also discussed, and the appearance of a new scaling variable is observed.

Keywords

• RHIC
• PHENIX
• femtoscopy
• Bose-Einstein correlations
• Lévy distribution
• anomalous diffusion
• critical point
• in-medium mass modification