Two-Proton Correlations from PB+PB Central Collisions

Abstract

The two-proton correlation function at midrapidity from Pb+Pb central collisions at 158 AGeV has been measured by the NA49 experiment. The preliminary results are compared to model predictions from proton source distributions of static thermal Gaussian sources and the transport models of RQMD and VENUS. We obtain an effective proton source size 4.0 +-0.15(stat.) +0.06-0.18(syst.) fm. The RQMD model underpredicts the correlation function (source size 4.41 fm), while the VENUS model overpredicts the correlation function (source size 3.55 fm).