Using computer simulations to study relativistic heavy ion collisions
Abstract
One of the most exciting topics in high-energy nuclear physics is the study of the potential phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter. Information about this transition, if it exists and can be experimentally determined, would be vital in understanding confinement of quarks and gluons inside hadrons. New accelerators, RHIC and LIIC, will be online in the next few years and will focus on finding evidence for this transition. RHIC will collide Au on Au at center of mass energies equal to 200 GeV/nucleon and create a high density, high temperature state of matter. To study the large particle multiplicities that will occur at these experiments, computer simulations are being developed. Within this thesis, one type of simulation will be detailed and used to study the invariant mass spectrum of leptons pairs measured at CERN SPS and several hadronic observables that could be measured at RHIC.
- Publication:
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Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- December 1998
- Bibcode:
- 1998PhDT.......113M
- Keywords:
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- Physics: Nuclear, Physics: Elementary Particles and High Energy