Bose-Einstein Correlations for Systems with Large Halo

Abstract

Model-independent considerations are presented for the calculation of Bose-Einstein correlation functions and momentum distributions which describe boson-emitting systems containing a central part surrounded by a large halo. If the characteristic geometrical size of the halo is sufficiently large, the contributions of central part and the halo to the invariant momentum distribution are shown to be separable. The momentum-dependence of the intercept parameter of the correlation function plays a central role. Almost all high energy reactions including lepton-lepton, lepton hadron, hadron-hadron and nuclear reactions are shown to be interpretable as boson emitting systems with large halo. The results are applied to certain high energy heavy ion data at CERN SPS. New insights are obtained for the description of low transverse momentum enhancement of pions.