What can we learn from three-pion interferometry?

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Abstract
We address the question, what additional information on the source shape and dynamics can be extracted from three-particle Bose-Einstein correlations. For chaotic sources the true three-particle correlation term is shown to be sensitive to the momentum dependence of the saddle point of the source and to its asymmetries around that point. For partially coherent sources the three-pion correlator allows one to measure the degree of coherence without contamination from resonance decays. We derive the most general Gaussian parametrization of the two- and three-particle correlator for this case and discuss the space-time interpretation of the corresponding parameters.