Selected results on Strong and Coulomb-induced correlations from the STAR experiment

Abstract

Using recent high-statistics STAR data from Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at full RHIC energy I discuss strong and Coulomb-induced final state interaction effects on identical ($π-π$) and non-identical ($π-Ξ$) particle correlations. Analysis of $π-Ξ$ correlations reveals the strong and Coulomb-induced FSI effects allowing for the first time to estimate space extension of $π$ and $Ξ$ sources and average shift between them. Source imaging technique providing clean separation of these effects from effects due to the source function itself is applied to one-dimensional relative momentum correlation function of identical pions. For low momentum pions and/or non-central collisions large departure from a single-Gaussian shape is observed.