J/[symbol psi] production and absorption in high energy nuclear collisions

We used a computer code, called SPACY, to simulate the production and ab-sorption of the J/ψ meson in nucleus-nucleus collisions. This simulation was car-ried out in a purely hadronic scenerio assuming that the nucleus-nucleus collision is an aggregate of hadron-hadron collisions. This was used to analyze a possible hadronic explanation for the results from CERN experiment NA50. These results showed an anomalous suppression of the J/ψ meson in Pb+Pb collisons at 158 A GeV/c along with a threshold in the transverse energy distribution. Predictions from SPACY cannot explain with the hadronic scenario either the anomalous suppression or the threshold in the distribution. We also find that one cannot determine the octet versus singlet contributions to the absorption without further data