EXTRACTING SOURCE PARAMETERS FROM GAUSSIAN FITS TO 2-PARTICLE CORRELATIONS

Using a quadratic saddle-point approximation we show how information about a particle-emitting source can be extracted from Gaussian fits to two-particle correlation data. Although the formalism is completely general, extraction of the relevant parameters is much simpler for sources within an interesting class of azimuthally symmetric models. After discussing the standard fitting procedure we introduce a new Gaussian fitting procedure which is an azimuthally symmetric generalization of the Yano-Koonin formalism for spherically symmetric sources. This new fitting procedure has the advantage that in addition to being able to measure source parameters in a fixed frame or the longitudinally comoving system, it can also measure these parameters in the local rest frame of the source.