Energy and system size dependence of \phi meson production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions

Understand

We study the beam-energy and system-size dependence of \phi meson production (using the hadronic decay mode \phi -- K+K-) by comparing the new results from Cu+Cu collisions and previously reported Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s_NN} = 62.4 and 200 GeV measured in the STAR experiment at RHIC.

• Data presented are from mid-rapidity (|y|<0.5) for 0.4 < pT < 5 GeV/c.
• At a given beam energy, the transverse momentum distributions for \phi mesons are observed to be similar in yield and shape for Cu+Cu and Au+Au colliding systems with similar average numbers of participating nucleons.
• The \phi meson yields in nucleus-nucleus collisions, normalised by the average number of participating nucleons, are found to be enhanced relative to those from p+p collisions with a different trend compared to strange baryons.