Mass and transverse momentum dependence of the dielectron yield in p-Be collisions at 4.9 GeV

We present the invariant mass and transverse momentum dependence of direct electron-positron pair production in {ital p}-Be collisions at a beam kinetic energy of 4.9 GeV. The acceptance of our apparatus is shown to have no significant effect for masses above 0.15 GeV. After a correction is made for the available phase space, the transverse momentum dependence of the data is found to be comparable to hadron-hadron observations. A phenomenological calculation involving {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup {minus}} annihilation into {ital e}{sup +}e{sup {minus}} is shown to be in good agreement with our measurements.