Eur. Phys. J. C (2005) 43: 145-156
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s2005-02245-6

Experimental Physics

20 years of J/ suppression at the CERN SPS

Results from experiments NA38, NA51 and NA50

¹ CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
² LLR, Ecole Polytechnique and CNRS-IN2P3, Palaiseau, France

^* e-mail: louis.kluberg@cern.ch

Received: 9 March 2005
Revised: 23 March 2005
Published online: 15 July 2005

Abstract

J/ suppression was predicted to be a signature of deconfinement and has been extensively studied at the CERN-SPS in proton, light and heavy ion induced reactions. Indeed, proton, O, S and Pb ion beams, at various incident energies, have been used at CERN on different targets, in order to precisely quantify J/ production as a function of both the colliding nuclei and the centrality of the collision itself. This paper reviews the results obtained so far with a critical discussion of the experimental conditions and successive improvements implemented for the various data samples. It makes a tentative summary of what has been learned on the subject, from the experimental point of view, in the SPS energy range.