Results from the first physics run of PHENIX at RHIC

Abstract

First results from measurements of Au−Au collisions at \(\sqrt {s_{NN} } = 130\) GeV, performed with the PHENIX experiment during the initial physics run of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in summer 2000, are summarized. Global characterization of the collisions was obtained from charged-particle multiplicity and transverse energy densities. At mid-rapidity, dNch/dν and dET/dν rise steadily with the event centrality, while the ratio / remains constant. Transverse momentum spectra of charged particles up to 5 GeV/c yield a suppression of high-momentum particles in the most central events when compared to a simple scaling of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The scaling matches with peripheral collisions. Transverse momentum spectra of identified neutral pions from 1 to 4 GeV/c in peripheral collisions show consistency with point-like scaling with the average number of binary collisions. Yields in central collisions are significantly suppressed. Transverse momentum spectra of identified charged hadrons up to 3.5 GeV/c were measured in minimum bias events. The mass and centrality dependencies of inverse slope parameters and mean transverse momenta were determined. Inclusive spectra of electrons were measured for momenta from a few hundred MeV/c to 4 GeV/c. Inclusive photon spectra from a few hundred MeV/c to 3 GeV/c were obtained from conversion pair measurements.