Re: [Brahms-l] Fwd: Your_manuscript LA11364 Arsene

Hello Ramiro
The set of comments from the 2 refs looks' manageable'. Congratulations. We await your draft reply.
cheers
JJ
_________________________________________________________________________
Jens Jørgen Gaardhøje, Professor, Dr. Sc.
Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Tlf: (+45) 35 32 53 09, secr. (+45) 35 32 52 09, Fax: (+45) 35 32 50 16.
UNESCO Natl. Comm.: secr. (+45) 33 92 52 16.
Email: gardhoje_at_nbi.dk.
_________________________________________________________________________

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ramiro Debbe 
  To: brahms-l_at_lists.bnl.gov 
  Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 5:18 PM
  Subject: [Brahms-l] Fwd: Your_manuscript LA11364 Arsene


  Dear Collaborators,
  The comments from the referees to our pp (2005) paper submitted to PRL are in.
  I will prepare a reply that will circulate to the collaboration before sending it back to the editors before the end of next week. As always, your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

  Ramiro
  Begin forwarded message:


    From: Physical Review Letters <prl_at_ridge.aps.org>
    Date: March 22, 2007 3:53:50 PM EDT
    To: debbe_at_bnl.gov
    Subject: Your_manuscript LA11364 Arsene

    Re: LA11364
    Production of mesons and baryons at high rapidity and high $p_T$
    in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV
    by I. Arsene, I.G. Bearden, D. Beavis, S. Bekele, C. Besliu, et al.

    Dr. R. Debbe
    Bldg 510D
    Brookhaven National Laboratory
    Upton NY, 11973

    Dear Dr. Debbe,

    The above manuscript has been reviewed by our referees. We ask you
    to consider the enclosed comments from the reports.

    While we cannot make a definite commitment, the probable course of
    action if you choose to resubmit is indicated below.

    ( ) Acceptance, if the editors can judge that all or most of the
    criticism has been met.

    (X) Return to the previous referee(s) for review if available.

    ( ) Submittal to new referee(s) for review.

    With any resubmittal, please include a summary of changes made 
    and a brief response to all recommendations and criticisms.

    Yours sincerely,

    Christopher Wesselborg
    Senior Assistant Editor
    Physical Review Letters
    Email: prl_at_ridge.aps.org
    Fax: 631-591-4141
    http://prl.aps.org/

    P.S. We regret the delay in the review process.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Report of Referee A -- LA11364/Arsene
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    This paper reports on very significant measurements of the
    transverse momentum distributions of light-quark mesons and
    baryons in a new kinematic range at RHIC, including data at
    fixed and moderately large rapidity. These data are an important
    extension by the BRAHMS collaboration of observations the Phenix
    and Star Collaborations, particularly in the inclusion of protons
    and antiprotons at high rapidity. Of particular interest is the
    contrast between the success of NLO QCD predictions for the mesons
    and their failure for baryons.

    As a purely experimental presentation, the results above are
    quite interesting, in addition to the comparison with NLO.
    The description of the data, and references to the theory, however,
    could be improved significantly in several places.

    1) On a sentence extending from page 3 to page 4 of the manuscript,
    and again on page 7, the authors present an opinion on the
    reason for the failure of NLO QCD with the parton distributions
    and fragmentation functions they tested. Quoting from the latter
    instance, ". . . because it [NLO QCD] does not include the effects
    of baryon transport . . . "

    Recommendation: this sentence could be acceptable if the word
    "perhaps" were inserted before "because". There is apparently
    no room in this format for the discussion of options other than
    baryon transport, even if they could be ruled out. In fact,
    it's not completely clear what they mean by "baryon transport"
    in this context. It should be defined. A similar modification
    of the earlier statement on transport is also in order.

    2) The claim of complete dominance by "gluon baryon pair production
    ..." in the caption for Fig. 3 then needs elaboration. Is this
    the case for all fragmentation sets, and is it a matter of a factor
    of 10 or 5, or what? Also, given the failure of one of the modern
    fragmentation functions by a factor of 10, one wonders how strong
    are the physics conclusions that can be reached on the basis of
    the baryon contributions from any of these sets.

    Recommendation: we need a much clearer presentation of how the
    fragmentation functions were used, and why, in the main text.

    3) CTEQ6 parton distributions should be referenced.

    4) Some indication is needed of the motivation for and origin of
    the "modifications" to fragmentation functions described in the
    middle of page 6. Is a reference in order, or is this the first
    time these modifications were ever done? Why have the authors
    chosen these specific multiplication factors of 1+z and 1-z?

    4) In Fig. 1, the caption states that errors are statistical.
    I didn't see a presentation of systematic errors in the figures,
    even though they are clearly of interest. Could they be different
    for protons and antiprotons? Presumably not, but it might be nice
    to have this said explicitly. Also the meaning of the shaded
    regions in Fig. 2 needs some explanation.

    These points should be addressed.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Report of Referee B -- LA11364/Arsene
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    The article presented is well written and presents unique data
    concerning identified particle spectra at high rapidities, with
    implications on perturbative QCD and, in particular, fragmentation
    functions. It thus provides necessary input for an improved
    understanding of the fragmentation in p+p collisions at RHIC energy
    and is, as such, of broad enough interest to be published in PRL.

    I have some minor questions and remarks which could help to improve
    the manuscript with respect to a better understanding:

    1. Page 4, paragraph 3, line 4: It is stated that the minimum bias
    trigger cross section is "estimated". On what basis is this done?

    2. Page 5, paragraph 1, line 2: The track reconstruction efficiencies
    were extracted from the data. How is this done? I understand that
    there is not much space for detailed technical explanations in a PRL,
    but it would be nice to at least get an idea of the procedure.

    3. Page 5, paragraph 3, line 3: The pi-/pi+ ratio at y=2,95 (fig. 2,
    upper left) is not "falling steadily". There is a feature from
    roughly pt = 1.5 to 3.5 GeV, which is beyond statistical errors. This
    is not seen at y=3.3. Can you comment on that?

    4. Figure 2 (lower left panel): There is a patten in the p/pi+
    ratio at y = 2.95 which is not present at y=3.3 (lower right
    panel). Interestingly, it is again in the pt range 1.5 - 2.5. There
    is no mentioning in the text about this structure. Can it be
    attributed to the pi+ spectrum, entering in the denominator in
    both ratios?

    5. Figure 3: Data are compared to NLO pQCD for y=2.95. Are the
    findings at y=3.3 similar?

    Finally some typos: Page 3, paragraph 3, line 3: Period missing
    after "GeV" Page 4, paragraph 2, line 4: set Cherenkov -> set of
    Cherenkov Page 5, table I, title: "absopt." -> absorpt.



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