Collision dynamics and particle production in relativistic nucleus- nucleus collisions at CERN.

摘要

The possibility of forming a quark-gluon plasma is the primary motivation for studying nucleus-nucleus collisions at very high energies. Various ''signatures'' for the existence of a quark-gluon plasma in these collisions have been proposed. These include an enhancement in the production of strange particles, suppression of J/(Psi) production, observation of direct photons from the plasma, event-by-event fluctuations in the rapidity distributions of produced particles, and various other observables. However, the system will evolve dynamically from a pure plasma or mixed phase through expansion, cooling, hadronization and freezeout into the final state particles. Therefore, to be able to determine that a new, transient state of matter has been formed it will be necessary to understand the space-time evolution of the collision process and the microscopic structure of hadronic interactions, at the level of quarks and gluons, at high temperatures and densities. In this talk I will review briefly the present state of our understanding of the dynamics of these collisions and, in addition, present a few recent results on particle production from the NA35 experiment at CERN. 21 refs., 5 figs. (ERA citation 15:036395)