Charged hadron distributions in central and peripheral Si+<i>A</i>collisions at 14.6<i>A</i>GeV/<i>c</i>

Abstract

The AGS spectrometer experiment E-802 has measured transverse mass spectra for charged hadrons over a wide rapidity interval in Si+Au, Si+Cu, and Si+Al reactions at 14.6A Gev/c. These results are compared for two different trigger conditions: central collisions corresponding to 7% of the inelastic cross section selected on multiplicity of charged particles and peripheral collisions corresponding to roughly 50% of the inelastic cross section selected on high kinetic energy at zero degrees. The invariant spectra are well described by exponentials in transverse mass allowing the extraction of rapidity distributions and inverse slope parameters for each specie emitted in the different reactions.