Long and Short Range Correlations: A Signature of String Fusion

Abstract

The study of backward-forward and forward-forward correlations in collisions of two nuclei at high energies allow us to distinguish between the fusion of strings produced in the collision into new strings of higher color and the possibility of the fusion of produced hadrons into clusters. The results for $\mathrm{AB}$ collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are discussed.