Pion source parameters in heavy ion collisions

Following the early work of Goldhaber, Lee, and Pais, many experiments have used the momentum correlations between identical bosons to determine the space-time extent of the pion source for various reactions between elementary hadrons. This technique, known as intensity interferometry, has recently been applied to nuclear collisions at both intermediate and very high energies. Here we report on measurements of the radius and lifetime of the pion source in the reactions 1.8 A GeV /sup 40/Ar + KCl ..-->.. 2..pi../sup +-/ + X, 1.8 A GeV /sup 20/Na + NaF ..-->.. 2..pi../sup -/ + X, and 1.71 A GeV /sup 56/Fe + Fe ..-->.. 2..pi../sup -/ + X. 11 references.