Experimental signature of medium modifications for rho and omega mesons in the 12 GeV p+A reactions

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Mar 10;96(9):092301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.092301. Epub 2006 Mar 10.

Abstract

The invariant mass spectra of e+e- pairs produced in 12 GeV proton-induced nuclear reactions are measured at the KEK Proton Synchrotron. On the low-mass side of the meson peak, a significant enhancement over the known hadronic sources has been observed. The mass spectra, including the excess, are well reproduced by a model that takes into account the density dependence of the vector meson mass modification, as theoretically predicted.