U.S.-Sweden Cooperative Research: High Energy Heavy Ion Interactions

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This award would allow Drs. R. Jeffrey Wilkes, Thompson H. Burnett, and Jere J. Lord, University of Washington, Seattle, to collaborate with Dr. K.N. Ingvar Otterlund and his research group at the University of Lund, Sweden. They will study high energy heavy ion interactions. The purpose will be to search for the new state of nuclear matter, the quark-gluon plasma, which is predicted to be created in heavy ion collisions. Their research will be done at the heavy ion facility at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland and at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States. The heavy ions 16O and 32S will be accelerated to energies of 13-200 GEV/nucleon and then directed into emulsion chamber detectors, which are arrays of nuclear emulsion plates. The procedure will permit precise observations of the produced particle tracks. This experiment is possible because the new CERN heavy ion beam became available in late 1986. The research is strengthened because the U.S. group is expert in the design and construction of emulsion chambers, and their Swedish counterparts are strong in exposure arrangements and analysis of data, and they are well-known for their theoretical interpretation of multiparticle production. The proposed cooperation presents the U.S. investigators with an opportunity to work with one of the world's leading research groups and to use highly specialized facilities abroad that are not easily available to them in the U.S.