QM93: Experimental highlights and outlook

Abstract

The Quark Matter 93 Conference takes place at a moment when our community is heavily involved in experimental activities on various fronts. The first BNL experiments using the 11.6 l A GeV/c Au beams have started producing results, while preparations are being made for future experiments at RHIC. At CERN, experiments are being prepared for the 160 l A GeV/c Pb beams expected by the end of 1994, while a Letter of Intent for an ion experiment at LHC has been submitted. In addition, the analysis of data obtained using the lighter nuclei beams available at both laboratories is being vigorously pursued. A proper summary of QM93 would certainly require a much larger space than is available to me and would probably be redundant in view of the large number of high-quality plenary session talks which have been given at the Conference. Therefore, in the summary part of my talk, I shall limit myself to an overview of results chosen from those which I consider to be the most interesting. For the same reasons, in the outlook part of the talk I shall not mention the future experimental program for the RHIC collider [l], nor the plans of the ion community for the LHC collider at CERN [2]. I shall instead make some comments on the fixed-target ion experiments for the next few years, and in particular on the opportunity of complementing the program already approved [3] with new experiments based on the use of microdetectors.