Status of the search for the quark-gluon plasma in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC

摘要

A qualitatively new form of matter is produced in central reiativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions! Needed: Further work ongoing to establish this is the quark-gluon plasma according to our definition. 1. likely sources of insight on experimental side (in the near term): 1.1 soft sector: 1.1.1 open charm elliptic flow (inclusive non-photonic electrons) √ 1.1.2 v_2 systematics (more particles, better statistics) √ 1.1.3 low mass di-leptons √ 1.1.4 low p_T direct photons 1.2 jets and hard probes: 1.2.1 higher pt; search for away side punch-through √ 1.2.2 better stats di-hadron correlations wrt reaction plane/ trigger particle √ 1.2.3 heavy quark suppression (energy loss) (inclusive n-phot electrons (?)) 1.2.4 search for forward mono-jets 1.2.5 study of suppression (?) for onium (screening in the plasma) √ 2. theory: provide quantitative assessments of sensitivity (e.g. to EOS) & theoretical √ uncertainties; incorporate higher level effects (e.g. correlations into coalescence).