BOSE-EINSTEIN CORRELATIONS OF SOFT PIONS IN ULTRARELATIVISTIC NUCLEUS-NUCLEUS COLLISIONS

A detailed analysis of pair correlations of positive pions in the target fragmentation region is presented. Data on nuclear collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon were measured with the Plastic Ball in the WA80 experiment at the CERN SPS. The correlation functions are compared with analytical functions and with simulations incorporating Bose-Einstein symmetrization, final-state interactions and detector resolution. Source radii are shown to increase with increasing target size and with centrality. For central collisions the radii are larger than the geometrical sizes of the involved nuclei.