Support for the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Group of the Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory at the University of Rochester

相对论重离子研究将利用布鲁克海文国家实验室的相对论重离子对撞机(RHIC)进行。这项研究将包括开发一种名为Phobos的专门探测器，用于RHIC。火卫一将提供一个关于物质在极端能量密度下的行为和衰变的第一次观察，这种极端能量密度将在质量中心系统中能量为100GeV/核子的金对金碰撞中产生。这项工作的目的是描述在这种能量碰撞中产生的假想的夸克-胶子等离子体，其中夸克和胶子被认为是反禁闭的，不同于正常强子物质的情况。此外，还将在BNL的交流梯度同步加速器设施中进行研究。这项实验将探索比RHIC能量更低的强子-强子相互作用的动力学，在那里，相互作用的细节被更好地理解，并且更好的理解将允许对RHIC能量的普通强子物质的行为进行必要的推断。这些数据将把我们对物质的知识扩展到能量和密度，这些能量和密度被认为只存在于早期宇宙的最初几微秒。美国国家科学基金会和能源部联合核科学咨询委员会在其1996年的长期计划中确立了这一主题在美国核科学中的高度优先地位。对学生和博士后的教育是这一实验计划的重要组成部分。

Research in relativistic heavy ions will be carried out making use of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The research will include development of a specialized detector known as PHOBOS for use at RHIC. PHOBOS will provide a first look at the behavior and decay of matter at the extreme energy densities that will be created in gold-on-gold collisions with energies of 100GeV/nucleon in the center-of-mass system. This work is aimed at characterizing the hypothesized quark-gluon plasma which is created in such energies collisions, and in which quarks and gluons are thought to be deconfined, unlike the case in normal hadronic matter. In addition, research will be carried out at the BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron facility. This experiment will probe the dynamics of hadron-hadron interactions at lower energies than RHIC, where the details of the interactions are better understood and where improved understanding will permit needed extrapolations of the behavior of ordinary hadronic matter of RHIC energies. These data will extend our knowledge of matter to energies and densities thought to have existed only in the first microseconds of the early universe. This topic is a high priority within US nuclear science, as established by the joint NSF/DOE Nuclear Science Advisory Committee in its 1996 Long Range Plan. Education of students and postdocs is a strong component of this experimental program.