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

该奖项将支持美国和瑞典物理学家在高能重离子相互作用主题上的持续合作。华盛顿大学的R.Jeffrey Wilkes博士、Thompson H.Burnett博士和Jeri J.Lord博士将与K.N.Ingvar Otterlund博士和他在隆德大学的实验室团队继续他们的研究工作。实验将在瑞士日内瓦的CERN重离子设施和美国的布鲁克海文国家实验室进行，数据的分析和还原将在各自的大学进行。重离子Si-28和S-32将被加速到15-200GeV/核子的能量，然后被引导到乳胶室探测器上，乳胶室探测器是核乳胶板阵列，允许非常精确地观察产生的粒子轨迹。该实验的主要目的将是寻找核物质的新状态--夸克-胶子等离子体，理论上预测这种等离子体最有可能在重离子碰撞中产生。这项实验代表着研究这种高密度物质相的独特机会，由于新的CERN硫离子束的能量将是以前任何原子序数大于Z=16的加速器粒子束的近50倍。结合了两个领先的国际研究小组在使用乳胶技术研究核相互作用方面的专业知识。这项拟议的研究对于利用新获得的重离子高能束流是重要的和及时的。

This award will support ongoing collaboration between U.S. and Swedish physicists on the topic of high energy heavy ion interactions. Drs. R. Jeffrey Wilkes, Thompson H. Burnett and Jeri J. Lord of the University of Washington will continue their research efforts with Dr. K.N. Ingvar Otterlund and his laboratory group at the University of Lund. Experiments will be performed at the CERN heavy ion facility in Geneva, Switzerland, and Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States, and the analysis and reduction of the data will be conducted at the respective individual universities. The heavy ions Si-28 and S-32 will be accelerated to energies of 15-200 GeV/nucleon and then directed onto emulsion chamber detectors, which are arrays of nuclear emulsion plates permitting extremely precise observations of produced particle tracks. The major purpose of the experiment will be to search for the new state of nuclear matter, the quark-gluon plasma, which is predicted theoretically to be most likely created in heavy ion collisions. The experiment represents a unique opportunity to study this high density phase of matter, since the new CERN sulfur ion beam will be nearly 50 times more energetic than any previous accelerator beams of particles having atomic numbers greater than Z=16. This project combines the expertise of two of the leading international research groups in the use of emulsion techniques for the study of nuclear interactions. The proposed investigation is important and timely in making use of newly available energetic beams of heavy ions.