TRANSVERSE AND FORWARD ENERGY-DISTRIBUTIONS IN ULTRARELATIVISTIC HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS BY AN ABSORPTION-MODEL

An absorption model based on the eikonal approximation of the nuclear optical model is proposed for the transverse and the forward energy di stributions in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is shown tha t the measured distributions can be expressed by their geometric distr ibution convoluted by a Gaussian distribution with centroid and width determined by the collision geometry and the average properties of N-N collisions. This result provides a physical argument for the formula used in the data fitting of the transverse energy distribution in the literature. The forward energy distribution formula is shown to be app licable for the data fitting.