The quantum mechanics of particle-correlation measurements in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

The Hanbury Brown--Twiss (HBT) effect in two-particle correlations is a fundamental wave phenomenon that occurs at the sensitive elements of detectors; it is one of the few processes in elementary particle detection that depends on the wave mechanics of the produced particles. We analyze here, within a quantum mechanical framework for computing correlations among high-energy particles, how particle detectors produce the HBT effect. We focus on the role played by the wave functions of particles created in collisions and the sensitivity of the HBT effect to the arrival times of pairs at the detectors, and show that the two detector elements give an enhanced signal when the single-particle wave functions of the detected particles overlap at both elements within the characteristic atomic transition time of the elements. The measured pair correlation function is reduced when the delay in arrival times between pairs at the detectors is of order of or larger than the transition time.