# Effect of the source charge on charged-boson interferometry

## Abstract

We investigate quantal perturbations of the interferometric correlations of charged bosons by the Coulomb field of an instantaneous, charged source. The source charge increases the apparent source size by weakening the correlation at non-zero relative momenta. The effect is strongest for pairs with a small total momentum and is stronger for kaons than for pions of the same momenta. The experimental data currently available are well described by this effect without invoking Pratt’s exploding source model. A simple expression is proposed to account for the effect.

Intensity interferometry of charged particles from heavy-ion collisions is an important probe of the fireball created in such collisions. The source parameters (lifetime, size, etc.) are important in determining the energy density of the source, from which the equation of state can be extracted. Unfortunately, the charged particles suffer Coulomb and strong interactions with each other and also with their source, complicating the interpretation of the interference patterns observed. The approximate Gamow correction for the Coulomb interaction between detected pions works well in the limit of the small source size, and improved corrections have been proposed for extended sources . The effect of strong interactions between the two emitted particles on their correlations has been examined for two emitted pions or kaons, for a pair of the pion and kaon, and for the case of two emitted protons.

These calculations ignore the interactions of the emitted particles with the source. The effect of strong interactions with a source was investigated for pion-source absorptive optical potentials by Chu et al. using eikonal wave functions. But because of its long range and the large charge of the colliding ions, the Coulomb influence of the source is also expected to be significant, but study has been limited to a qualitative discussion  and to classical considerations. In this letter, we report the first quantum-mechanical investigation of the effect of the Coulomb interaction between the emitted particles and their source; specifically for two-boson interferometry of instantaneous sources. We find that the Coulomb interaction tends to increase the apparent source size, in contradicting with the previous investigations. We also find that this apparent “magnification” can be evident in the experimental correlations binned by the total momentum of the pair.

The correlation between a pair of emitted particles is expressed in terms of their asymptotic momenta, $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$. The correlation function depends on various factors: the symmetries between the emitted particles, the forces among the emitted particles and the source, and the size and lifetime of the source. Here, we treat the source instantaneous and massive, and examine the case of boson pairs; $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$ are thus measured in the rest frame of the source, which does not recoil. The correlation function is expressed as

$$C(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)=\frac{𝑑𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}g(𝐫_1)g(𝐫_2)|\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐩_1,𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)|^2}{𝑑𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}g(𝐫_1)|\varphi _{𝐩_1}^{()}(𝐫_1)|^2𝑑𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}g(𝐫_2)|\varphi _{𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_2)|^2}.$$
(1)   
where the bosons are assumed to be emitted without correlation from the source with a momentum-independent semiclassical probability $`g(𝐫)`$. $`\varphi _𝐩^{()}(𝐫)`$ is the one-body scattering wave-function of a boson with asymptotic momentum $`𝐩`$ and incoming scattered wave, due to the interaction with the source. $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐩_1,𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$ is the two-body scattering wave-function of the bosons with the asymptotic momenta $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$.

To clarify the effect of the source-pair interaction, we neglect the Coulomb and strong interactions between the emitted pair, assuming that these can be treated by the methods in q. , , and . $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐩_1,𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$ is then expressed as a symmetrized product of $`\varphi _𝐩^{()}(𝐫)`$’s,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐩_1,𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)=2^{1/2}[\varphi _{𝐩_1}^{()}(𝐫_1)\varphi _{𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_2)+\varphi _{𝐩_1}^{()}(𝐫_2)\varphi _{𝐩_2}^{()}(𝐫_1)].$$
(2)   
Note that Eqs. (1) and (2) give $`C(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)=2`$ at relative momentum, $`𝐪𝐩_1𝐩_2=0`$, as is the case of no final state interaction with source. For further clarity, we take the source charge distribution to be Gaussian and define the apparent source size, $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$, as

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}^2\mathrm{C}(\mathrm{q})}{\mathrm{dq}^2}|_{q=0}=R_{\mathrm{app}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}.$$
(3)   
In general, $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ will also depend upon the total momentum of the emitted pair, $`𝐏=𝐩_1+𝐩_2`$. Note that $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ as defined becomes the exact source size, $`R_0`$, when there is no source-pair interaction.

With no further approximation, we solve the Schrödinger equation numerically for $`\varphi _𝐩^{()}(𝐫)`$, using the partial-wave decomposition method with the appropriate kinematics and boundary conditions. Figure 1 shows $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ thus calculated, illustrating the effect of a source charge on the correlations of both positive and negative pion pairs. We see that in both cases, the apparent size is larger than the exact size for small $`P=|𝐏|`$. Also, as suggested in Ref. , the apparent size can become either larger or smaller than the exact size, depending on the charge of the pair being either negative or positive. It does, however, only by a very slight amount and at high $`P`$. We make two further comments on Fig. 1: 1) At a fixed $`P`$, $`C(q)`$ is of a Gaussian form as a function of $`q`$. 2) When $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ is integrated over $`𝐏`$ with the thermal spectrum of pions, the resultant effective $`R_{\mathrm{app}}(T)`$ is greater than $`R_0`$ (except for $`\pi ^+`$ pairs at high temperatures, $`kT>`$ 400 MeV.)

A simplified description using the eikonal approximation reveals the essential physics of why the apparent size is larger than the true size. It provides a useful expression for the apparent size as a function of $`P`$. In the eikonal approximation,

$$\varphi _𝐩^{()}(𝐫)=\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩𝐫+i\chi (𝐩,𝐫)),$$
(4)   
with

$$\chi (𝐩,𝐫)=\frac{1}{v}_{\mathrm{}}^0V(𝐫+z\widehat{𝐩})𝑑z,$$
(5)   
where $`V(𝐫)`$ is the Coulomb potential between the source and the emitted boson of the mass $`m`$ and the velocity $`v`$. Equation (2) yields

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_1,𝐩_2,𝐫_1,𝐫_2)|^2=1+\mathrm{cos}(𝐪(𝐫_1𝐫_2)+\chi (𝐩_1,𝐫_1)+\chi (𝐩_2,𝐫_2)\chi (𝐩_2,𝐫_1)\chi (𝐩_1,𝐫_2)).$$
(6)   
Note that $`\chi (𝐩,𝐫)`$ of Eq. (5) diverges logarithmically, but Eq. (6) converges at least as fast as $`|𝐫_1𝐫_2|/|𝐫_1+𝐫_2|`$ because of the cancellation between $`\chi `$’s. Numerically we find, for example, that the contribution beyond 15 fm is negligible for the source size less than 8 fm.

Let us now consider the special case where the bosons emitted with parallel momenta. The apparent size of a spherically symmetric charged source can then be expressed as

$$R_{\mathrm{app}}^2(P)=R_0^2+\frac{m}{P^2}T+\left(\frac{m}{P^2}\right)^2U^2.$$
(7)   
Here, $`T`$ and $`U`$ depend only on the source distribution and potential:

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_1d^3𝐫_2g(𝐫_1)g(𝐫_2)(𝐫_{12}\widehat{𝐳})\left[I(𝐫_1)I(𝐫_2)\right]}`$ (8)   
$`U^2`$ $`=`$ $`4{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_1d^3𝐫_2g(𝐫_1)g(𝐫_2)\left[I(𝐫_1)I(𝐫_2)\right]^2},`$ (9)   
where $`I(𝐫)=v\chi (𝐩,𝐫)`$ is a function of the emission point, $`𝐫`$. A close examination of Eqs. (7) – (9) shows  that the crucial quantity is essentially the ratio of the Coulomb and kinetic energies,

$$\zeta =\frac{Ze^2}{R_0}/\frac{P^2}{2m},$$
(10)   
which becomes large for large $`Z`$ and low $`P`$.

The $`T`$ term in Eq. (7) is a linear functional of the Coulomb potential between the source and the emitted pair, and thus either increases or decreases $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$, depending on the emitted pair either negatively or positively charged. The $`U`$ term is, however, quadratic in the Coulomb potential and increases $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ in all cases. For the cases considered below, $`|\zeta |`$ is significant when $`P`$ is smaller than a few hundred MeV/c, or even less. The $`U`$ term can then contribute appreciably to $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$, and actually become dominant for a relatively wide range of small $`P`$. $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ rises very rapidly ($`P^4`$) for the low $`P`$. The contribution like the $`T`$ term is included in the discussion of Ref., but the contribution like the $`U`$ term is not.

Equations (7) – (9) shows that for a given $`P`$, the effect is stronger for heavier particles, for example, kaons in comparison to pions.

The parameters $`T`$ and $`U`$ are proportional to the source charge in the eikonal approximation, and depend to a small extent on the source size and geometry. The exact expression of $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ for arbitrary $`𝐏`$ and $`𝐪`$ is more complicated than Eq. (7). Numerical calculations show, however, that these observations obtained for the special case of the eikonal approximation still hold, and that Eq. (7) yields a quite good representation of the $`P`$ dependence of $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ if we treat $`T`$ and $`U`$ as adjustable parameters. In this case, $`T`$ and $`U`$ follow semi-quantitatively these observations, including rising with increasing source charge roughly linearly. In detail, $`U`$ representing the exact results (i.e. using exact wave functions) is smaller than those obtained with the eikonal wave function, especially for a large source charge. This is because $`U`$ is determined dominantly in the small $`P`$ region, where the eikonal wave function tends to overestimate the phase shifts. However, $`T`$ is insensitive to small $`P`$ and is calculated reasonably reliably by the eikonal approximation.

More importantly, Fig. 1 suggests that the effect of the source-pair interaction can be seen clearly when the data are binned according to the total momentum of the pair, $`P`$. Though yet relatively crude, such data are available. Figure 2 show comparison of our exact calculation with data at 650 MeV/nucleon  for the positive boson pairs, $`\pi ^+\pi ^+`$ and $`K^+K^+`$. For the sake of clarity, we show the calculation in Figs. 2 and 3 after smoothing out by means of Eq. (7) the curves obtained by numerical integration as those in Fig. 1. In the upper panel of Fig. 2, the calculated effect of a $`Z=158`$ source charge is compared with $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ extracted from the $`\pi ^+\pi ^+`$ data of Au $`+`$ Au central collisions, binned according to $`P`$ of the pair. We see that the calculation with the (true) size of $`R_0=1.0`$ fm reproduce the data well. In the lower panel of Fig. 2, similar calculated effect of a $`Z=82`$ source charge with $`R_0=2.8`$ fm is compared with the Nb $`+`$ Nb collision data. The agreement between our calculation and the data is also good.

Figure 3 shows similar comparison for $`\pi ^{}\pi ^{}`$ pairs at a higher energy of 1.8 GeV/nucleon. In the upper panel, the calculation for a $`Z=100`$ source with $`R_0=2.8`$ fm is compared with the Ar $`+`$ Pb collision data; and in the lower panel, the calculation for a $`Z=36`$ source with $`R_0=4.2`$ fm is compared with the Ar $`+`$ KCl collision data. The agreement appears to be reasonable.

In these calculations, $`R_0`$ is taken to be the asymptotic value of $`R_{\mathrm{app}}`$ at large $`P`$. This is the only adjust parameter in the case of our exact calculation. Note that the rise of the apparent size at small $`P`$ is determined by the charge of the source, the mass and charge of the outgoing particles, and weakly depends on $`R_0`$.

The Ar $`+`$ KCl data of Fig. 3 has previously been fit with an exploding source model . This model, which neglects the charge of the source but does takes into account a radial expansion of the source, also predicts an apparent source size dependence that will show larger sources for small total momentum pairs. The dotted line in the lower panel of Fig. 3 shows the exploding source fit of . This fit has two free parameters, a source size of 7.75 fm and a expansion rate $`T/\gamma v`$ of 100 MeV. In contrast, the predicted effect of the source charge we show here only has one free parameter, the actual source size $`R_0`$; we take the charge of the source from the total charge of the colliding ions. Even though the general trend of the exploding source model is similar to the results for a charged source, the exploding source model shows a gentle behavior at small total momentum $`P`$ and still has a significant slope at large $`P`$. The effect of the source charge is very strong at low total momentum, and is very small at large total momentum. The different total momentum dependence of these two effects would allow them to be disentangled, if experimental data finely binned by total pair momentum becomes available.

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation grant at Caltech (PHY-9412818 and PHY-9420470), and by the U. S. Department of Energy grant at CSUN (DE-FG03-87ER40347).