3D Imaging in Heavy-Ion Reactions

Abstract

We report an extension of the source imaging method for imaging full three-dimensional sources from three-dimensional like-pair correlations. Our technique consists of expanding the correlation data and the underlying source function in spherical harmonics and inverting the resulting system of one-dimensional integral equations. With this method of attack, we can image the source function quickly, even with the extremely large data sets common in three-dimensional analyses. We apply our method to the recently measured E859 un-Coulomb corrected data.