Observation of two-source interference in the photoproduction reaction AuAu --> AuAurho0.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2009;
102:112301. [PMID:
19392193 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.102.112301]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2008] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
In ultraperipheral relativistic heavy-ion collisions, a photon from the electromagnetic field of one nucleus can fluctuate to a quark-antiquark pair and scatter from the other nucleus, emerging as a rho{0}. The rho{0} production occurs in two well-separated (median impact parameters of 20 and 40 F for the cases considered here) nuclei, so the system forms a two-source interferometer. At low transverse momenta, the two amplitudes interfere destructively, suppressing rho{0} production. Since the rho{0} decays before the production amplitudes from the two sources can overlap, the two-pion system can only be described with an entangled nonlocal wave function, and is thus an example of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. We observe this suppression in 200 GeV per nucleon-pair gold-gold collisions. The interference is 87%+/-5%(stat.)+/-8%(syst.) of the expected level. This translates into a limit on decoherence due to wave function collapse or other factors of 23% at the 90% confidence level.
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