# An Update on NA50 and LUCIFER

## I J/$`\psi `$ Suppression in ‘99

This brief note is presented to clear up any misinformation that may have been created by the NA50 contribution to QM’99  or to the Proceedings of the International school of Nuclear Physics Erice, 17-25 September, 1998 . The QM’99 document contains new data from the NA50 collaboration, taken in late 1998 with a thinner target than used previously. The total data sample is reanalysed and compared to a variety of theoretical simulations. In at least one case this comparison was not straightforwardly made . There are two noteworthy features of the combined new data set. One is the striking absence of the discontinuity in the $`E_t`$ spectrum which first appeared in the 1996 measurements  for J/$`\psi `$ from Pb+Pb. The second is the very evident change in the $`E_t`$ scale between the present and several earlier submissions. Not much is said in the QM’99 NA50 presentation by way of explaining either of these changes, although presumably the ‘minimum-bias’ smoothing procedure, introduced in QM’99, accomplishes the removal of the discontinuity.

The lack of such a singularity was of course anticipated in any theoretical calculation based on cascade-like simulations. Only theories proposing some or other phase change have introduced such singular behaviour, and it must be said, generally have done so in a rather ad hoc fashion. It is in fact not clear to what extent discontinuities can persist in finite systems, even when a ‘change of phase’ is present in an infinite medium.

The change of scale for transverse energy was also anticipated in at least one theoretical work . In the present authors’ discussion of J/$`\psi `$ suppression a scale factor was clearly referred to in these two publications . In Reference  this was done specifically in the caption to the figure describing the comparison with NA50 for Pb+Pb at $`158`$ GeV (Figure 15 in , Figure 1 below). At that point it was noted that an $`E_t`$ scale factor had been introduced to reconcile the experimental and theoretical spectra. Again in the earlier Reference , in the caption to Figure 11, the reader is referred to the text for a discussion of the $`E_t`$ scale, wherein it is stated that a scaling factor of $`1.25`$ was employed. Very clearly then, the present authors gave warning that the Pb+Pb transverse energy scale achieved with LUCIFER was not in accord with that presented by the NA50 collaboration.

Reference was also made in both publications to private communications with the NA50 collaboration. These communications led to the necessity of a scale change and revealed that the ‘Collaboration’ did not at that time actually have good knowledge of the absolute $`E_t`$ scale. Indeed, a figure of $`125`$ GeV for the end point was cited as a reasonable alternative to the heretofore published value of 150-160 GeV . We are of course pleased if the absolute $`E_t`$ is now better understood by NA50 and for the moment, at least, is closer to our estimate.

In fact, the scale factor we used to compare the LUCIFER calculation with experiment also took account of the seeming $`510\%`$ discrepancy in cutoff between the full $`E_t`$ spectra of NA49  and LUCIFER (see Figure 13 in Reference  which is Figure 2 here). The agreements between simulations and both the NA49 inclusive meson and baryon spectra  and this NA49 $`E_t`$ spectrum suggest an inconsistency with the cutoff earlier quoted for NA50 data. The theoretical calculation acts as an interpolation between experiments and predicted a cutoff transverse energy nearer $`120`$ GeV than $`150`$. Thus the overall factor was close to $`1.30`$, i.e. the factor between LUCIFER and NA50 ’96 $`E_t`$ scales.

To further clear up any possible misapprehensions, we present here the earlier Figures 13 and 15 from Reference  (Figures 1 and 2 here) and a new Figure 3 comparing our $`E_t`$-unscaled spectrum for Pb+Pb with one of the recent NA50 figures (Figure 57 in Kluberg QM’99). This NA50 plot is apparently obtained by rebinning from more complete spectra, but the overall effect is the same as graphing the totality of $`E_t`$ measurements. It is clear that some of our last J/$`\psi `$ to Drell-Yan values, at the end of the previous $`E_t`$ scaled calculation, appear slightly more suppressed. No significance can be attached to this since any cacscade is necessarily an inexact theory, to say the least, and our normalisatons are subject to some error from taking a ratio to Drell-Yan, perhaps $`7\%`$ or less. It would have been better to compare the theoretical survival probability directly to some experimental estimate of this quantity. The calculated survival rates are unchanged from our previous calculation. Of course none of these normalisation problems attach to the comparison with minimum bias J/$`\psi `$ production, which in both simulation and experiment in principle use absolute cross-sections. Our explanation of the anomalous suppression there  remains in place.

If anything, in this presentation of ‘unscaled $`E_t`$,’ we have exaggerated a small discrepancy at peripheral $`E_t`$, where unfortunately one does not expect any unusual or ‘plasma-like’ behaviour, and one must keep in mind the NA50 caveat concerning their absolute $`E_t`$ scale. We must still conclude that present deviations with NA50 do not justify any claims for startling medium-based effects. One might well argue that the breakup of a small object like the J/$`\psi `$ could never be ascribed to screening by a plasma. Ultimately, dissolution of the J/$`\psi `$ must result from gluon exchange interactions between quarks initially in hadrons and in the $`c\overline{c}`$ preresonant pair. It is probably hard for the charmonium state to distinguish between three quarks in a nucleon say, and the same three quarks somewhat spread out as in a plasma. There is no true continuous medium which can permeate the bound or preresonant charmonium state.

The cascade theory can hardly be called ad hoc, as it is described in Reference . An attempt is simply made to incorporate as much information as is known from the elementary hadronic data in a comprehensive multi-scattering formalism. In our comparison with inclusive NA49 Pb+Pb spectra only a single intrinsic parameter of the model was determined from ion-ion data, i.e. the formation time for secondary mesons , and that was obtained from the light system S+S. The resulting good description of the NA49 Pb+Pb spectra surely removes the theory from any ad hoc category. The same cannot be said for the ‘Glauber’ calculations which yield neither inclusive meson spectra nor direct $`E_t`$ distributions, and which nevertheless were used to justify the inability of standard theory to explain the suppression in Pb+Pb. In particular, close to the correct number of produced mesons is achieved in the LUCIFER simulation and thus the breakup of charmonium states by these comovers is appropriately estimated, a feature intimately tied to the theory’s correct evaluation of the total transverse energy.

For the purposes of calculating J/$`\psi `$ suppression, one requires other cross-sections. Breakup of J/$`\psi `$ from its collisions with baryons is determined from the nucleon-nucleus production data; breakup cross-sections on mesons are essentially taken as $`2/3`$ of that on nucleons. We indicated  that breakup in meson-charmonium collisions mostly takes place well above threshold, so the latter estimate is likely good.

It is incumbent on those proposing the production of ‘plasma’ in their measurements to demonstrate a clear deviation with the normal ‘background’ a cascade provides. This will prove as necessary at RHIC as it was at the SPS.

## II Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Boris Kopeliovitch for several illuminating discussions. The present manuscript has been authored under US DOE grant No. DE-AC02-98CH10866. One of us (SHK) is pleased to acknowledge continuing support from the Alexander Von Humbodt Foundation, Bonn Germany.