Multiplicity Dependence of Partially Coherent Pion Production in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

We investigate two- and three-particle intensity correlation functions of pions in relativistic heavy ion collisions for different colliding energies. Based on three models of particle production, we analyze the degree to which the pion sources are chaotic in the SPS S+Pb, Pb+Pb and the RHIC Au+Au collisions. The ``chaoticity'', $\lambda$, of the two-particle correlation functions is corrected for long-lived resonance decays. The effect of the partial Coulomb correction is also examined. Although the partially coherent model gives a result which is consistent with that of STAR, the chaotic fraction does not exhibit clear multiplicity dependence if we take into account both the corrected chaoticity and the weight factor of the three-pion correlation function. The result of the partially-multicoherent model indicates an increasing number of coherent sources in higher multiplicity events.