- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review C

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Squeezed spectra and back-to-back correlations of protons and antiprotons at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Yong Zhang*

  • *Contact author: zhy913@jsut.edu.cn
PDF

Phys. Rev. C 114, 014901 – Published 1 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mtjg-rff8

Abstract

This study constrains the range of in-medium mass modification through a comparison of theoretical calculations with experimental transverse momentum spectra and the yield ratio p¯/p of protons and antiprotons. Based on the constrained range and a Gaussian source model with radial flow, the theoretical predictions for the fermion back-to-back correlation (fBBC) of pp¯ pairs at BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider energies are presented. The results reveal a strong sensitivity of the fBBC signal to the assumed source time distribution: a Lorentzian form generates a pronounced high-momentum signal, whereas an α-stable Lévy form leads to a marked low-momentum signal. Moreover, the in-medium mass modification is shown to enhance the yield ratio p¯/p. Therefore, events characterized by a larger p¯/p ratio are predicted to have a significantly higher probability of exhibiting a detectable fBBC signal. This study may propose a promising new direction for the experimental observation of this phenomenon.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (25)

  1. N. J. Abdulameer et al. (PHENIX Collaboration), Centrality dependence of Lévy-stable two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in sNN=200 GeV Au+Au collisions Phys. Rev. C 110, 064909 (2024).
  2. S. Navas et al. (Particle Data Group), Review of particle physics, Phys. Rev. D 110, 030001 (2024).
  3. S. E. Vance, T. Csörgő, and D. Kharzeev, Observation of partial UA(1) restoration from two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2205 (1998).
  4. T. Csörgő, R. Vértesi, and J. Sziklai, Indirect observation of an in-medium η′ mass reduction in sNN=200GeVAu+Au collisions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 182301 (2010).
  5. R. Vértesi, T. Csörgő, and J. Sziklai, Significant in-medium η′ mass reduction in sNN=200 GeV Au+Au collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Phys. Rev. C 83, 054903 (2011).
  6. M. Asakawa, T. Csörgő, and M. Gyulassy, Squeezed correlations and spectra for mass-shifted bosons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4013 (1999).
  7. S. S. Padula, G. Krein, T. Csörgő, Y. Hama, and P. K. Panda, Back-to-back correlations for finite expanding fireballs, Phys. Rev. C 73, 044906 (2006).
  8. D. M. Dudek and S. S. Padula, Squeezed K+K− correlations in high energy heavy ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 82, 034905 (2010).
  9. S. S. Padula and O. Socolowski, Jr., Searching for squeezed particle-antiparticle correlations in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 82, 034908 (2010).
  10. Y. Zhang, J. Yang, and W. N. Zhang, Squeezed correlations of ϕ meson pairs for hydrodynamic sources in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 92, 024906 (2015).
  11. Y. Zhang, J. Yang, and W. N. Zhang, Relativistic effects on the back-to-back correlation functions of boson-antiboson pairs in high energy heavy ion collisions, Chin. Phys. C 39, 034103 (2015).
  12. P. Z. Xu, W. N. Zhang, and Y. Zhang, Squeezed back-to-back correlation between bosons and antibosons with different in-medium masses in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 99, 011902(R) (2019).
  13. P. K. Panda, T. Csörgő, Y. Hama, G. Krein, and S. S. Padula, Squeezed fermions at relativistic heavy ion colliders, Phys. Lett. B 512, 49 (2001).
  14. H. Soller, Where to look for hadronic squeezed correlations at RHIC, Nucl. Phys. A 1000, 121813 (2020).
  15. M. I. Nagy (for the PHENIX Collaboration), Search for particle-antiparticle back-to-back correlations in sNN=200 GeV Au + Au collisions, Phys. Part. Nucl. Lett. 8, 1033 (2011).
  16. Y. Zhang and J. Yang, Squeezed spectra for mass-shifted fermions, Int. J. Mod. Phys. E 35, 2550057 (2026).
  17. Y. Zhang, Squeezed Fermion back-to-back correlation for expanding sources Universe, 11, 166 (2025).
  18. A. Mishra, P. K. Panda, S. Schramm, J. Reinhardt, and W. Greiner, Structure of the vacuum in nuclear matter: A nonperturbative approach, Phys. Rev. C 56, 1380 (1997).
  19. P. Csizmadia, T. Csörgő, and B. Lukács, New analytic solutions of the non-relativistic hydrodynamical equations, Phys. Lett. B 443, 21 (1998).
  20. T. Csörgő, Simple analytic solution of fireball hydrodynamics, Central Eur. J. Phys. 2, 556 (2004).
  21. J. P. Bondorf, S. Garpman, and J. Zimányi, A simple analytic hydrodynamic model for expanding fireballs, Nucl. Phys. A 296, 320 (1978).
  22. B. I. Abelev et al. (STAR Collaboration), Energy dependence of π±, p and p¯ transverse momentum spectra for Au+Au collisions at sNN=62.4 and 200 GeV, Phys. Lett. B 655, 104 (2007).
  23. L. Adamczyk et al. (STAR Collaboration), Bulk properties of the medium produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions from the beam energy scan program, Phys. Rev. C 96, 044904 (2017).
  24. M. Csanád (PHENIX Collaboration), Measurement and analysis of two- and three-particle correlations, Nucl. Phys. A 774, 611 (2006).
  25. Y. Zhang and W. N. Zhang, Predictions for squeezed back-to-back correlations of ϕϕ and K+K− in high-energy heavy-ion collisions by event-by-event hydrodynamics, Eur. Phys. J. C 76, 419 (2016).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. C 114, 014901– Published 1 July, 2026
  • Received 7 February 2026
  • Accepted 12 June 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation