Hadron-Deuteron Correlations and Production of Light Nuclei in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

The production of light nuclei in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is well described by both the thermal model, where light nuclei are in equilibrium with all other hadron species present in a fireball, and by the coalescence model, where light nuclei are formed due to final state interactions after the fireball decays. A method is proposed to falsify one of the models. We suggest to measure a hadron-deuteron correlation function which carries information about the source of the deuterons and allows one to determine whether a deuteron is directly emitted from the fireball or if it is formed afterwards. The $K^-\!-\!D$ and $p\!-\!D$ correlation functions are computed to illustrate the statement.