[Brahms-l] Fw: NEWS RELEASE: Copper vs. Copper at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

FYI
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Flemming Videbaek
Physics Department
Brookhaven National Laboratory



> The following news release is being distributed today by the U.S. 
> Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. An electronic 
> version of the release and additional information can be found at:
> http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=05-05
> 
> 
> ************
> NEWS RELEASE
> number: 05-05
> for release: Wednesday, January 12, 2005
> 
> contact: Karen McNulty Walsh, 631 344-8350, kmcnulty@bnl.gov or Mona 
> S. Rowe, 631 344-5056, mrowe@bnl.gov
> 
> Copper vs. Copper at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
> 
> Middleweight matchup to provide control data in exploration of new 
> form of matter
> 
> UPTON, NY -- Scientists searching for evidence that a particle 
> accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National 
> Laboratory has created a new form of matter not seen since the Big 
> Bang and eager to study its properties have begun using a new 
> experimental probe, collisions between two beams of copper ions. The 
> use of intermediate size nuclei is expected to result in intermediate 
> energy density -- not as high as in earlier runs colliding two beams 
> of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), but more 
> than was produced by colliding a beam of gold ions with much lighter 
> deuterons.
> 
> "To completely understand the phenomena we are observing at RHIC, we 
> have to look at what happens over a range of system sizes and 
> collision energies," says Samuel Aronson, chair of Brookhaven's 
> Physics Department and an experimenter at RHIC.
> 
> RHIC scientists agree that the gold-gold collisions have produced 
> some very intriguing data that indicate the presence of a new form of 
> matter -- hotter and denser than anything ever produced in a 
> laboratory. Furthermore, data from the deuteron-gold collisions 
> confirm that the hot, dense matter the scientists are seeing in the 
> gold-gold collisions is made in the collisions; that is, it is not an 
> intrinsic property of the gold ions themselves, because it is not 
> observed in the deuteron-gold collisions.
> 
> "The copper experiments will provide another control, or basis for 
> comparison, that will help us understand how the new phenomena we are 
> observing can be turned on and off, and under what conditions," 
> Aronson says.
> 
> The run is expected to last for about 10 weeks, but depends on 
> funding for fiscal year 2005.
> 
> At the same time, RHIC scientists are still analyzing more than a 
> million gigabytes of data gathered since RHIC started collisions in 
> June 2000, much of it from the most recent gold-gold run conducted in 
> 2004. This data should help scientists describe in more detail the 
> properties of the new form of matter being observed in the gold-gold 
> collisions, and perhaps settle on how best to characterize it.
> 
> Built upon the foundation of an existing chain of accelerators at 
> Brookhaven Lab, RHIC is actually two circular accelerators, 2.4 miles 
> in circumference, capable of accelerating heavy ions to nearly the 
> speed of light and creating collisions between these particles to 
> help investigate the fundamental nature of matter. Through its 
> collisions of gold ions, RHIC was designed to reproduce the hot, 
> dense conditions of the early universe, in which it is postulated 
> that the inner components of protons and neutrons -- known as quarks 
> -- and the gluons that bind the quarks in ordinary matter would exist 
> for a fleeting instant free from their normal confinement within 
> protons and neutrons.
> 
> That is, the energy of the collisions was predicted to be sufficient 
> to "melt" the protons and neutrons and produce a hot "soup" of free 
> quarks and gluons, dubbed the quark-gluon plasma. By analyzing what 
> happens in these collisions using four sophisticated detectors 
> (BRAHMS, PHENIX, PHOBOS, and STAR), 1000 researchers from around the 
> world are exploring the smallest, most fundamental bits of matter and 
> how they interact.
> 
> To date, some of what has been observed at RHIC fits with what was 
> expected of quark-gluon plasma, but some of the findings do not. So 
> there has been considerable debate over whether the hot, dense matter 
> being created at RHIC is indeed the postulated quark-gluon plasma, or 
> perhaps something even more interesting.
> 
> Data already in hand show that the quarks in the new form of matter 
> appear to interact quite strongly with one another and the 
> surrounding gluons, rather than floating freely in the "soup" as the 
> theory of quark-gluon plasma had predicted. Many physicists are 
> beginning to use the term "strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma," 
> or sQGP, to capture this understanding.
> 
> "The findings from the copper-copper run will provide some new 
> answers -- and perhaps some additional questions, as we move steadily 
> from discovery to the full characterization of the new form of 
> nuclear matter," says Thomas Kirk, Brookhaven's Associate Laboratory 
> Director for High-Energy and Nuclear Physics.
> 
> RHIC is funded primarily by the Office of Nuclear Physics within the 
> U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
> 
> One of the ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by 
> the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 
> Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, 
> biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy 
> technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and 
> operates major scientific facilities available to university, 
> industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and 
> managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, 
> a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the 
> largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a 
> nonprofit, applied science and technology organization. Visit 
> Brookhaven Lab's electronic newsroom for links, news archives, 
> graphics, and more: http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom
> 
> - 30 -
> 
> -- 
> ********
> Media and Communications Office, Bldg. 134
> Brookhaven National Laboratory
> PO Box 5000
> Upton, New York 11973-5000
> phone: 631 344-8350 or 631 344-2345
> fax: 631 344-3368
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> or bulletin@bnl.gov
> 

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