2008/02/25 by W. A. Zajc
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #nucl-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2008.02.285
published as Nucl.Phys.A805:283-294,2008 · 12 pages, 5 figures; to appear in Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Nuclear Physics; version posted as submitted on 27-Sep-07
arxiv created 2008/02/25 · openalex publication_date 2008/05/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Collisions of heavy nuclei at very high energies offer the exciting possibility of experimentally exploring the phase transformation from hadronic to partonic degrees of freedom which is predicted to occur at several times normal nuclear density and/or for temperatures in excess of ∼ 170 MeV. Such a state, often referred to as a quark-gluon plasma, is thought to have been the dominant form of matter in the universe in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. Data from the first five years of heavy ion collisions of Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) clearly demonstrate that these very high temperatures and densities have been achieved. While there are strong suggestions of the role of quark degrees of freedom in determining the final-state distributions of the produced matter, there is also compelling evidence that the matter does \em not behave as a quasi-ideal state of free quarks and gluons. Rather, its behavior is that of a dense fluid with very low kinematic viscosity exhibiting strong hydrodynamic flow and nearly complete absorption of high momentum probes. The current status of the RHIC experimental studies is presented, with a special emphasis on the fluid properties of the created matter, which may in fact be the most perfect fluid ever studied in the laboratory.