J/psi suppression in a hadron and string cascade model

The proposed hadron and string cascade model, JPCIAE, for ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions based on the LUND model and the PYTHIA event ge nerator especially, is used to investigate the J/psi suppression due to the nuclear absorption of a J/psi in minimum bias pA and BA collisions at 200A GeV energy. With the different sets of reasonable formation time for hadro n and J/psi the results of J/psi suppression factor from both the usual sce nario and the Glauber-like simulations are comparable with all the NA38 pA and BA data, except the NA50 data of Pb + Pb collisions. However, the diffe rence between the usual scenario and the Glauber-like simulation, hence the difference between the dynamical simulation and Glauber theory, can not be ignored. The sensitive effect of the hadron formation time on the J/psi su ppression is studied in detail. The results seem to denote that for the J/p si suppression the meson absorption plays a role in pA as well as in BA col lisions.