Studying re-scattering effect in heavy-ion collision through K* production.

We have studied the K* production within a multi-phase transport model (AMPT) for + collisions at to understand the hadronic re-scattering effect on the measured yields of the resonance. The hadronic re-scattering of the K* decay daughter particles (π and K) will alter their momentum distribution thereby making it difficult to reconstruct the K* signal through the invariant mass method. An increased hadronic re-scattering effect thus leads to a decrease in the reconstructed yield of K* in the heavy-ion collisions. Through this simulation study, we argue that a decrease in K*/K ratio with the increase in collision centrality necessarily reflects the hadronic re-scattering effect. Since the re-scattering occurs in the hadronic phase and K* has a lifetime of 4 fm/c, we present a toy model-based discussion on using measured K*/K to put a lower limit on the hadronic phase lifetime in high energy nuclear collisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]