Three-pion interferometry of relativistic nuclear collisions - art. no. 064904

Three-pion interferometry is investigated for new information on the space- time structure of the pion source created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion co llisions. The two- and three-pion correlations are numerically computed for incoherent source functions based on the Bjorken hydrodynamical model, ove r a wide range of the kinematic variables. New information provided by thre e-pion interferometry, different from that provided by two-pion interferome try, should appear in the phases of the Fourier transform of the source fun ction. Variables are identified that would be sensitive to the phases and s uitable for observation. For a positive, chaotic source function, however, a variation of the three-pion phase is found to be difficult to extract fro m experiments. Effects of asymmetry of the source function are also examine d. [S0556-2813(99)00112-0].