Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions: from the BEVALAC to RHIC

Abstract

I briefly describe the initial goals of relativistic nuclear collisions research, focusing on the LBL Bevatron/Bevalac facility in the 1970's. An early concept of high hadronic density fireball formation, and subsequent isentropic decay (preserving information as to the high density stage) led to an outline of physics observables that could determine the nuclear matter equation of state at several times nuclear ground state matter density. With the advent of QCD the goal of locating, and characterizing the hadron-parton deconfinement phase transformation suggested the need for higher $\sqrt{s}$, the research thus moving to the BNL AGS and CERN SPS, finally to RHIC at BNL. A set of physics observables is discussed where present data span the entire $\sqrt{s}$ domain, from Bevalac and SIS at GSI, to top RHIC energy. Referring, selectively, to data concerning bulk hadron production, the overall $\sqrt{s}$ evolution of directed and radial flow observables, and of pion pair Bose-Einstein correlation are discussed. The hadronization process is studied in the grand canonical statistical model. The resulting hadronization points in the plane T vs. ${\mu }_B$ converge onto the parton-hadron phase boundary predicted by finite ${\mu }_B$ lattice QCD, from top SPS to RHIC energy. At lower SPS and top AGS energy a steep strangeness maximum occurs at which the Wroblewski parameter ${\lambda }_s\approx$ 0.6; a possible connection to the QCD critical point is discussed. Finally the unique new RHIC physics is addressed: high $p_T$ hadron suppression and jet "tomography".

19 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Calculating Quenching Weights
• Chemical equilibrium study in nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies
• Heavy ion collisions and lattice QCD at finite baryon density
• Event-by-Event Fluctuations of Particle Ratios in Central Pb+Pb Collisions at 20 to 158 AGeV
• Energy Scan Program at the Cern SPS and An Observation of the Deconfinement Phase Transition in Nucleus--Nucleus Collisions
• Correlations and Fluctuations
• Rapidity and transverse momentum dependence of pion-pion Bose-Einstein correlations measured at 20, 30, 40, 80, and 158 AGeV beam energy
• Strangeness Report
• The Wroblewski Parameter from Lattice QCD
• Hydrodynamic emission of strange and non-strange particles at RHIC and LHC

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