Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Scientific paper
2004-05-13
Prog.Part.Nucl.Phys. 54 (2005) 443-534
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
93 pages, 46 figures; final version for journal incorporating minor changes and corrections
Scientific paper
10.1016/j.ppnp.2004.09.001
We review the physics of nuclear matter at high energy density and the experimental search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The data obtained in the first three years of the RHIC physics program provide several lines of evidence that a novel state of matter has been created in the most violent, head-on collisions of $Au$ nuclei at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. Jet quenching and global measurements show that the initial energy density of the strongly interacting medium generated in the collision is about two orders of magnitude larger than that of cold nuclear matter, well above the critical density for the deconfinement phase transition predicted by lattice QCD. The observed collective flow patterns imply that the system thermalizes early in its evolution, with the dynamics of its expansion consistent with ideal hydrodynamic flow based on a Quark-Gluon Plasma equation of state.
Jacobs Peter
Wang Xin-Nian
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