On source parameters from particle correlations and spectra

Abstract

Analytic and numeric approximations are studied in detail for a hydrodynamic parameterization of single-particle spectra and two-particle correlation functions in high energy hadron-proton and heavy ion reactions. Two very different sets of model parameters are shown to result in similarly shaped correlation functions and single particle spectra in a rather large region of the momentum space. However, the absolute normalization of the single-particle spectra is found to be highly sensitive to the choice of the model parameters. For data fitting the analytic formulas are re-phrased in terms of parameters of direct physical meaning, like mean transverse flow. The difference between the analytic and numeric approximations are determined as an analytic function of source parameters.