Measurement of at forward and backward rapidity in +, l, u, and He+Au collisions at = 200 GeV
Acharya, U.*; Hasegawa, Shoichi ; Imai, Kenichi*; Sako, Hiroyuki ; Sato, Susumu ; Tanida, Kiyoshi ; PHENIX Collaboration*; 358 of others*
Charmonium is a valuable probe in heavy-ion collisions to study the properties of the quark gluon plasma, and is also an interesting probe in small collision systems to study cold nuclear matter effects, which are also present in large collision systems. With the recent observations of collective behavior of produced particles in small system collisions, measurements of the modification of harmonium in small systems have become increasingly relevant. We present the results of measurements at forward and backward rapidity in various small collision systems, , Al, Au and HeAu, at =200 GeV. The results are presented in the form of the observable , the nuclear modification factor, a measure of the ratio of the invariant yield compared to the scaled yield in collisions. We examine the rapidity, transverse momentum, and collision centrality dependence of nuclear effects on production with different projectile sizes and He, and different target sizes Al and Au. The modification is found to be strongly dependent on the target size, but to be very similar for Au and HeAu. However, for 0% - 20% central collisions at backward rapidity, the modification for HeAu is found to be smaller than that for Au, with a mean fit to the ratio of (stat)(syst), possibly indicating final state effects due to the larger projectile size.