1998/08/11 by Hans J. Weber, H. Weber, Christof Ernst +11 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Collision #Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry) #Excitation #Excitation function #Hadron #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Nuclear physics #Nuclear reaction #Nucleon #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quark #Quark–gluon plasma #Rapidity #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s0370-2693(98)01252-0
published as Phys.Lett. B442 (1998) 443-448 · 10 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 1998/08/11 · openalex publication_date 1998/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We estimate the energy density pile-up at mid-rapidity in central Pb+Pb collisions from 2 - 200 GeV/nucleon. The energy density is decomposed into hadronic and partonic contributions. A detailed analysis of the collision dynamics in the framework of a microscopic transport model shows the importance of partonic degrees of freedom and rescattering of leading (di)quarks in the early phase of the reaction for lab-energies > 30 GeV/nucleon. In Pb+Pb collisions at 160 GeV/nucleon the energy density reaches up to 4 GeV/fm3, 95% of which are contained in partonic degrees of freedom.