Deuterons and space-momentum correlations in high energy nuclear collisions

Using a microscopic transport model together with a coalescence afterburner, we study the formation of deuterons in Au+Au central collisions at √ (s) =200A GeV. It is found that the deuteron transverse momentum distributions are strongly affected by the nucleon space-momentum correlations, at the moment of freeze-out, which are mostly determined by the number of rescatterings. This feature is useful for studying collision dynamics at ultrarelativistic energies. copyright 1999 The American Physical Society