Combined effects of nuclear Coulomb field, radial flow, and opaqueness on two-pion correlations

Abstract

Correlations of two like charged pions emitted from a hot and charged spherically expanding nuclear system are investigated. The motion of the pions is described quantum mechanically using the Klein-Gordon equation which includes Coulomb field and pion absorption. Flow modifies the radial distribution of the source function and rescales the pion wave functions. The radii extracted from the correlation functions are calculated in sideward and outward direction as a function of the pair momentum. Comparison with recent measurements at SIS and AGS energies is made.