Comparisons between rescattering calculations and boson interferometry experiments

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Abstract
In this paper a simple final-state rescattering model is used in an effort to describe the energy dependence of pion and kaon interferometry measurements obtained in two experiments, one at the CERN SPS (experiment NA44) with 200 GeV/n S+Pb and one at the BNL AGS (experiment E859/E866) with 14.6 GeV/n Si+Au. The method used for the Monte Carlo rescattering calculations is similar to a previous work in which starting from an initially cylindrical geometry pions, kaons, and nucleons are allowed to rescatter until freeze out occurs, particles are symmetrized in pairs from these freeze-out space-time positions, and then two-particle correlation functions are formed to extract boson source parameters. Predictions based on this model are also made for SPS Pb+Pb collisions, data for which have recently been taken and are in the process of being analyzed. It is found that the rescattering model qualitatively agrees with the results of both experiments and is consistent with the picture that freeze out occurs at a constant particle density resulting in a linear dependence of the freeze-out volume on the particle multiplicity. © 1996 The American Physical Society.