Two-Pion Interferometry for the Granular Source in Heavy Ion Collisions at LHC Energies

The space-time characters of the pion-emitting sources produced in the heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies are investigated in a granular source model of quark-gluon plasma droplets. The results of two-pion interferometry indicate that the longitudinal interferometry radius is sensitive to the initial breakup time of the system. For a larger breakup time the values of the longitudinal interferometry radius for the LHC source are larger than that of the source produced in the collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider’s (RHIC) top energy. However, the values of the longitudinal radius are smaller if the source fragments at a smaller breakup time with a higher initial temperature of the droplets. The values of the transverse interferometry radius in the “side” direction for the LHC sources are larger than those for the RHIC source. The imaging analyses for the characteristic quantities of the granular sources are consistent with the interferometry radii.