Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics

该项目的目标是研究相对论核之间的碰撞，并最终确定核物质在广泛的温度和密度范围内的性质。宇宙中存在由核物质组成的极热或致密物体;然而，由于不可能直接研究中子星的内部，或超新星的第一时刻，或大爆炸的最早时刻，人们只能诉诸具有挑战性的研究核-核碰撞提供的有限和瞬态系统。很明显，为了理解核状态方程或识别到一种新的物质状态（夸克-胶子等离子体）的跃迁，需要一套全面的、相关的测量，以及将可观测量与核物质变量联系起来的广泛计算。该项目的重点是利用位于纽约布鲁克海文国家实验室的相对论重离子对撞机（RHIC）的螺线管跟踪器（星星）实验和位于瑞士日内瓦欧洲核子研究中心（CERN）的大型强子对撞机（LHC）的紧凑型μ子螺线管（CMS）获取和分析这样一组数据。构成星星和CMS实验的探测器系统的集合提供了关于单个碰撞事件的详细信息。UCD小组将使用这些探测器的数据来重建事件，并从记录的碎片中推断碰撞的动力学和热力学。通过从RHIC的注入能量扫描到LHC的离子全能量，将探索从20到6000倍静止质量的能量范围。

The goal of this project is the study of collisions between relativisticnuclei and ultimately the determination of the properties of nuclearmatter over a wide range of temperatures and densities. Extremely hot ordense objects which are made of nuclear matter exist in the cosmos;however, without the possibility direct study of the interiors of neutron stars, or of the first moments of a supernova, or of the earliest moments of the Big Bang, one resorts to the challenging studies of finite and transient systems as provided by nucleus-nucleus collisions. Ithas become clear that in order to understand the nuclear equation of stateor to identify a transistion to a new state of matter, the quark-gluonplasma, it will require a comprehensive and correlated set of measurementsas well as extensive calculations which relate the observables to thenuclear matter variables. This project focuses on the acquisition andanalysis of such a set of data using the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR)experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) located atBrookhaven National Laboratory in New York and using the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The collection of detector systems which make up both the STAR and CMS experiment provide detailed information about individualcollision events. The UCD group will use data from these detectors toreconstruct the events and infer, from the recorded debris, both thedynamics and the thermodynamics of the collision. By scanning from injection energy at RHIC to the full energy for ions at the LHC, the energy range from twenty to six thousand times the rest mass will be explored.