The Mesozoic ERA of Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics and Beyond

Abstract

In order to understand how matter 15 billion years ago in the form of quarks, gluons and leptons at a temperature of 2 × 1012 °K evolved to become today’s Universe, the goal of relativistic and ultra-relativistic heavy ion physics is to understand the equation of state of nuclear, hadronic and partonic matter. This quest is of cross-disciplinary interest. The phase transition from partonic matter to hadronic matter tens of micro-seconds after the beginning of the universe is of interest to cosmology. Fluctuations during this phase transition would influence nucleosynthesis and the understanding of baryonic inhomogeneities in the universe. The nuclear matter equation of state, which describes the incompressibility of nuclear matter, governs neutron star stability. It determines the possible existence of strange quark matter stars and the dynamics of supernova expansion in astrophysics. The existence of collective nuclear phenomena in nuclear physics is also determined by the nuclear equation of state. In relativistic heavy ion collisions collective nuclear flow has been observed and is being studied extensively to obtain a better understanding of the incompressibility of nuclear matter. In high energy nuclear and particle physics, production and excitations of hadronic final states have been studied in detail and are important to an overall understanding of the equation of state of nuclear matter at finite temperature. The possibility in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions to create and study highly excited hadronic and partonic degrees of freedom provides a unique opportunity for understanding the behavior of nuclear, hadronic and partonic matter. Study of the QCD vacuum, of particular interest in particle physics, would provide a better understanding of symmetry-breaking mechanisms and the origins of the masses of the various quarks and particles. Creation and study of the quark-gluon plasma, an excitation of the QCD vacuum, is the goal of physicists in the new field of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions.