The reconstructed final state of Au + Au collisions from PHENIX and STAR data at sqrts=130 AGeV - indication for quark deconfinement at RHIC
Abstract
The final state of Au + Au collisions at sqrts=130 AGeV at RHIC has been reconstructed within the framework of the Buda-Lund hydrodynamical model, by performing a simultaneous fit to final data on two-particle Bose-Einstein correlations of the STAR and PHENIX Collaborations, and final identified single particle spectra as measured by the PHENIX Collaboration. The results indicate a strongly three-dimensional expansion with a four-velocity field that is almost a spherically symmetric Hubble flow. We find large transverse geometrical source sizes, RG = 9.8 +- 1.2 fm, a relatively short mean freeze-out time of tau0 = 6.1 +- 0.3 fm/c and a short duration of particle emission, Deltatau = 0.02 +- 1.5 fm/c. Most strikingly, we find an indication for a hot central part or the hydrodynamically evolving core, characterized by a central temperature of T0 = 202 +- 13 MeV, that is close to (or even above) the deconfinement temperature of the quark-hadron phase transition. The best fit indicates a cold surface temperature of Ts = 110 +- 16 MeV. When the possibility of the hot center is excluded, the confidence level of the fit decreases from 28.9 % to 1.2 %. Predictions are made for the rapidity dependence of the slope parameters, for the transverse mass dependence of the rapidity-width of the single-particle spectra, and for the transverse velocity dependence of the non-indentical particle correlations.
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