Tilted pion sources from azimuthally sensitive HBT interferometry

Intensity interferometry in noncentral heavy ion collisions provides access to novel information on the geometry of the effective pion-emitting source. We demonstrate analytically that, even for vanishing pair momentum, the cross terms Rol2 and Rsl2 of the HBT correlation function in general show a strong first harmonic in their azimuthal dependence. The strength of this oscillation characterizes the tilt of the major axis of the spatial emission ellipsoid away from the direction of the beam. Event generator studies indicate that this tilt can be large (>20°) at AGS energies which makes it by far the most significant azimuthally sensitive HBT signal at these energies. Moreover, transport models suggest that for pions this spatial tilt is directed opposite to the tilt of the directed flow ellipsoid in momentum space. A measurement of the azimuthal dependence of the HBT cross terms Rol2 and Rsl2 thus probes directly the physical origin of directed pion flow.