Pbar Annihilation in Au+Au at AGS Energies

Abstract

Antinucleon production in heavy ion collisions is potentially an excellent signal for unusual phenomena in hot and dense matter. However, at the low energies available at the AGS the annihilation process must be handled with care. In this Comment, we consider the case of Au + Au collisions at approximately 11 GeV/c, applying the ARC treatment of pbar production and annihilation to the analysis of experiment E878. It is apparent that classical screening introduced for Si + Au is crucial in the understanding of data obtained with the more massive projectile. Unfortunately, there seems no necessity for invoking unusual behaviour in the Au + Au system.