Nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies: The CERN WA80 experiment
QCD lattice calculations predict that, at sufficiently high energy densities, hadronic matter undergoes a transition to a new phase of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, in which quarks and gluons are deconfined over a relatively large volume. It has been suggested that collisions between heavy nuclei at ultrarelativistic energies may produce the energy densities, estimated to be greater than 2 to 3 GeV/fm/sup 3/, necessary for this phase transition to occur. An important goal of the first experiments with ultrarelativistic heavy-ion beams at the SPS accelerator at CERN is to investigate the extent to which this suggestion is correct. The primary experimental quantity used for estimating the energy density is the transverse energy, E/sub T/. We present here energies measured at zero degrees, together with transverse energy measurements. Estimates of attained energy densities and preliminary transverse momentum distributions of neutral products are also presented. 24 refs., 7 figs.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA); Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung m.b.H., Darmstadt (Germany, F.R.); Muenster Univ. (Germany, F.R.); Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (USA); Lund Univ. (Sweden); Tennessee Univ., Knoxville (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 6114876
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-8706113-6; ON: DE87014948
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 6. Adriatic international conference on nuclear physics: frontiers of heavy-ion physics, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, 15 Jun 1987; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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