Nucleon shadowing effects in $Cu+Cu$ and $Au+Au$ collisions at RHIC within the HIJING code

Abstract

The centrality dependence of pseudorapidity density of charged particles ($ dN_{ch}/d\eta $) in $Cu+Cu$ ($Au+Au$) collisions at RHIC energy of $ \sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=22.4$ , $62.4 $ and $200$ ($19.6$, $62.4$ and $200$) GeV, is investigated within an improved HIJING code. The standard HIJING model is enhanced by a prescription for collective nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interactions and more modern parton distribution functions. The collective $NN$-interactions are used to induce both cascade and nucleon shadowing effects. We find collective cascade broadens the pseudorapidity distributions in the tails (at $ |\eta|> y_{\rm beam} $) above $25-30\%$ collision centrality to be consistent with the $ dN_{ch}/d\eta $ data at $ \sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=19.6$, $22.4$, $62.4 $ GeV. The overall contribution of nucleon shadowing is shown to depress the whole shape of $ dN_{ch}/d\eta$ in the primary interaction region (at $ |\eta|< y_{\rm beam} $) for semiperipheral ($ 20-25 $ \%) and peripheral ($\ge 35-40$\%) $Cu+Cu$ ($Au+Au$) interactions at $ \sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=200$ GeV, in accordance with the PHOBOS data.