The Coulomb Interaction between Pion-Wavepackets: The piplus-piminus Puzzle

The time dependent Schr\"odinger equation for $\pi^+$--$\pi^-$ pairs, which are emitted from the interaction zone in relativistic nuclear collisions, is solved using wavepacket states. It is shown that the Coulomb enhancement in the momentum correlation function of such pairs is smaller than obtained in earlier calculations based on Coulomb distorted plane waves. These results suggest that the experimentally observed positive correlation signal cannot be caused by the Coulomb interaction between pions emitted from the interaction zone. But other processes which involve long-lived resonances and the related extended source dimensions could provide a possible explanation for the observed signal.