Production and propagation of neutral mesons at relativistic energies

The formation and evolution of compressed nuclear matter is studied in heavy ion collisions at relativistic energies. Neutral mesons (π0,η) yields from baryon resonance decays have beam measured for a number of colliding systems and bombarding energies. The energy dependent of the meson yields suggests the formation of an equilibrated baryon system with an initial thermal energy of roughly 85% of the available energy. Collisions of resonances of mesons with nucleons cause absorption redistribution of mesons in phase space. This results in an azimuthal asymmetry of pions. The energy spectra of π0 and η mesons reveal a scaling with the transverse mass similar to observations at ultrarelativistic energies. This underlines the importance of individual resonances for the spectral distribution of mesons. The azimuthal dependence of baryon energy spectra reveals the influence of shadowing by spectator matter. (authors)