RUI: RHIC Physics at Muhlenberg College and In the Allentown Community

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It is now a well-established fact that nucleons, protons and neutrons, are made up of more elementary particles called quarks. The main physics program supported by this grant is to measure the energy of particles produced at small scattering angles from collisions of atomic nuclei at high energies, carried out at the Brookhaven National Lab using the PHENIX particle detector. These measurements will help to understand the new state of matter, a plasma of quarks, that is formed from such collisions. In particular, the results of this measurement are expected to probe the initial conditions of quarks and other strongly-interacting particles in the nucleus before the collision. In recent years, we have learned that the initial conditions of the quarks before the collision result in hot-spots within the quark-gluon plasma, and how these hot-spots spread their energy within the plasma provides information on this new state of matter. It is worth noting that this research program is carried out at an undergraduate institution, Muhlenberg College, and is a highlight of the Physics Department. Most of the physics majors have participated in it by the time of their graduation. Furthermore, almost all of the participants have chosen to continue in STEM fields after graduation.Theorists have suggested that measurements of transverse energy are a barometer of a state of saturated plasma. Both studies of existing data from a relativistic heavy ion collisions (RHIC) experiment, called the beam energy scan, by the PHENIX Collaboration and work on transverse energy in the forward and backward kinematic regions are testing gluon-saturation models in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. To date, transverse energy in the forward and backward kinematic regions has not been reported. Associated with regions of higher net baryon chemical potential on the phase diagram of nuclear matter, these measurements, along with existing transverse energy measurements at central rapidity for a variety of colliding systems and beam energies, provide new insight into the strongly interacting quark gluon plasma.