Hi, I'd appreciate any comments, corrections, etc. on the following abstract. Thanks! Peter--How do you plan to submit your abstract? I can't see anything on the qm2002 web site about submitting .tex files. In fact, I can't find any instructions whatsoever concerning the form of the abstracts. I was assuming that we only get to write text into the window that they have for abstract submission on the qm2002 web site. Did you find additional information somewhere? Regards, Steve ------------------------------------------------------------- Pseudorapidity Distributions of Charged Particles at RHIC S.J. Sanders* for the BRAHMS Collaboration We have measured pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles produced in Au+Au collisions at energies of Sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV and 200 GeV as a function of reaction centrality[1-2]. These data provide essential clues as to the underlying reaction mechanisms and as to the conditions achieved in these ultrarelativistic collisions. It has been conjectured that new phenomena related to nonperturbative QCD might occur at the highest RHIC energy[3]. A saturation in the number of parton collisions in central nucleus-nucleus collisions could lead, for example, to a limit on particle production at midrapidity. Several subcomponents of the BRAHMS experiment at RHIC were used for the measurements. Coaxial arrays of Si strip detectors and scintillator tile detectors measured particle production near midrapidity. Arrays of Cherenkov radiators mounted onto phototubes determined the charged-particle production closer to beam rapidity. In addition, a time-projection chamber located near midrapidity offered a quasi-independent measurement of the charged-particle densities at several angles, thus making it possible to check the analysis procedures. This talk will present the experimental charged-particle distributions at the two RHIC energies. A characterization of the data in terms of ``soft'' and ``hard'' scattering components will be developed. Model calculations that include parton saturation effects and alternative calculations based on a multi-phase transport picture[4] will be compared to the data. The data at more forward rapidity will be discussed in terms of a limiting fragmentation picture in which the excitation of the fragment baryons saturate at modest energy, independent of system size. Overall, a general characterization of particle production at RHIC energies will be developed. *U. Kansas [1] I.G. Bearden et al., Phys. Lett. B 523 (2001) 227. [2] I.G. Bearden et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 (2002) 202301. [3] D. Kharzeev and E. Levin, Phys. Lett. B 523 (2002) 79. [4] Zi-wei Lin, Subrata Pal, C.M. Ko, Bao-An Li and Bin Zhang, Phys. Rev. C 64 (2001) 011902.
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