No abstract

The STAR Collaboration reports the first observation of exclusive rho(0) photoproduction, AuAu-->AuAurho(0), and rho(0) production accompanied by mutual nuclear Coulomb excitation, AuAu-->Au*Au*rho(0), in ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions. The rho(0) have low transverse momenta, consistent with coherent coupling to both nuclei. The cross sections at sqrt[s(NN)]=130 GeV agree with theoretical predictions treating rho(0) production and Coulomb excitation as independent processes.

The reaction e+e~e+e m. m has been analyzed using 97 pb ' of data taken with the Crystal Ball detector at the DESY e e+ storage ring DORIS II at beam energies around 5.3 GeV. For the first time we have measured the cross section for yy~m. m. for n m invariant masses ranging from threshold to about 2 GeV. We measure an approximately flat cross section of about 10 nb for 8'=m 0 0 (0.8 GeV, which is below 0.6 GeV, in good agreement with a theoretical prediction 'tr n' based on an unitarized Born-term model. At higher invariant masses we observe formation of the ft(1270) resonance and a hint of the fo(975). We deduce the following two-photon widths: I rr(f, (1270)) =3.19+0. 1620 z, keV and I "(fo( 975)) (0.53 keV at 90% CL. The decayangular distributions show the m~system to be dominantly spin 0 for W &0.7 GeV and spin 2, helicity 2 in the f, (1270) region, with helicity 0 contributing at most 22% (90% C.L.).

We report high statistics measurements of inclusive charged hadron production in Au+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt[s(NN)]=200 GeV. A large, approximately constant hadron suppression is observed in central Au+Au collisions for 5

Transverse mass and rapidity distributions for charged pions, charged kaons, protons, and antiprotons are reported for square root of [sNN]=200 GeV pp and Au+Au collisions at Relativistic Heary Ion Collider (RHIC). Chemical and kinetic equilibrium model fits to our data reveal strong radial flow and long duration from chemical to kinetic freeze-out in central Au+Au collisions. The chemical freeze-out temperature appears to be independent of initial conditions at RHIC energies.