Salient Features of Hadronization, Deconfinement and Heavy Quark Probes at RHIC

Data on high energy nuclear collisions collected at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the past decade have provided convincing evidence that hadronization is quite different in hot nuclear environments compared to p+p collisions. In particular, the data suggest that we see traces of quark degrees of freedom in elliptic flow, with the implication that collective flow is generated on the parton level and is transfered to hadrons through a simple recombination step. In th...

The study of heavy flavor production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is an extreme experimental challenge but provides important information on the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Heavy-quarks are believed to be produced in the initial stages of the collision, and are essential on the understanding of parton energy loss in the dense medium created in such environment. Moreover, heavy-quarks can help to investigate fundament...

High-energy collisions of heavy ions provide a means to study QCD in a regime of high parton density, and may provide insight into its phase structure. Results from the four experiments at RHIC (BRAHMS, PHENIX, PHOBOS and STAR) are presented, and placed in context with the lower energy data from the AGS and SPS accelerators. The focus is on the insights these measurements provide into the time history of the collision process. Taken together, the data point to the creation of...

After decades of painstaking research, the field of heavy ion physics has reached an exciting new era. Evidence is mounting that we can create a high temperature, high density, strongly interacting ``bulk matter'' state in the laboratory -- perhaps even a quark-gluon plasma. This strongly interacting matter is likely to provide qualitative new information about the fundamental strong interaction, described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). These lectures provide a summary of e...

Experimental results on heavy-quark production in proton-proton, deuteron-gold, and gold-gold collisions at sqrt(s_(NN)) = 200 GeV at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are reviewed.

Highly excited nuclear matter created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions possibly reaches the phase of quark deconfinement. It quickly cools down and hadronises. We explain that the process of hadronisation may likely be connected with disintegration into fragments. Observable signals of such a scenario are proposed.

Extensive experimental data from high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions were recorded using the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The comprehensive set of measurements from the first three years of RHIC operation includes charged particle multiplicities, transverse energy, yield ratios and spectra of identified hadrons in a wide range of transverse momenta (p_T), elliptic flow, two-particle correlations, non-statistical fluctuations, and suppressi...

This article reviews (soft) hadronic signals of deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration in hot QCD matter in the light of the results from the first three years of the experimental program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

QCD predicts a phase transition between hadronic matter and a Quark Gluon Plasma at high energy density. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is a new facility dedicated to the experimental study of matter under extreme conditions. I will discuss the first round of experimental results from colliding heavy nuclei at RHIC and our current understanding of the state of matter generated in such collisions, concentrating on partonic energy l...

The main goals of relativistic heavy-ion experiments is to study the properties of QCD matter under extreme temperatures and densities. The focus of this talk is the studies that are underway at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) on Long Island, New York, U.S.A. I discuss selected highlights from the past couple of years that are key to elucidating the characteristics of the new state of matter created in these heav...