Identical Particle Correlations in STAR

Abstract

Preliminary results of identical-particle correlations probing the geometric substructure of the particle-emitting source at RHIC are presented. An $m_T$-independent scaling of pion HBT radii from large (central Au+Au) to small (p+p) collision systems naively suggests comparable flow strength in all of them. Multidimensional correlation functions are studied in detail using a spherical decomposition method. In the light systems, the presence of significant long-range non-femtoscopic correlations complicates the extraction of HBT radii.

Talk given at Quark Matter 2005, 18th Internationl Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Interactions, August 4-9, 2005, Budapest, Hungary; 4 pages, 5 figures; figure 1 corrected; few references added; the discussion on universal scaling has been slightly changed