The Mini-bang : Search for the Quark Gluon Plasma Virtual Journey from the Big-Bang to the Mini-Bang. Prof. Claude Pruneau Wayne State University MDAPT Meeting at Wayne State University, March 20, 2002

The Night Sky The Stars And the wanderers The planets What else ?

Mosaic of 51 wide-angle photographs. Made over a three year period from locations in California (USA), South Africa, and Germany, the individual pictures were digitized and stitched together to create an apparently seamless 360 by 180 degree view.

Virgo Cluster

Increasing Red Shift With Increasing Distance

Doppler Effect

Doppler Effect of light from moving Stars

The further apart galaxies are, the faster they move away from one another. Expanding Universe

Measurements of Hubble Expansion: Hubble Constant : 70 km/sec/mpc (  10%) Galaxies appear to be moving 160,000 miles per hour faster for every 3.3 million light-years away from Earth. Wendy Freedman et al.(Carnegie Observatories), HST Key Project Team, and NASACarnegie ObservatoriesNASA Fornax cluster barred spiral galaxy NGC1365 HST Picture: Identification of 50 Cepheids variable stars

Big Bang Model A broadly accepted theory for the origin and evolution of our universe. It postulates that 12 to 14 billion years ago, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across. It has since expanded from this hot dense state into the vast and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit. In the beginning, there was a Big Bang, a colossal explosion from which everything in the Universe sprung out.

Experimental Evidence of the Big Bang  Expansion of the universe  Edwin Hubble's 1929 observation that galaxies were generally receding from us provided the first clue that the Big Bang theory might be right.  Abundance of the light elements H, He, Li  The Big Bang theory predicts that these light elements should have been fused from protons and neutrons in the first few minutes after the Big Bang.  The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation  The early universe should have been very hot. The cosmic microwave background radiation is the remnant heat leftover from the Big Bang.

99.97% of the radiant energy of the Universe was released within the first year after the Big Bang itself and now permeate space in the form of a thermal 3 K radiation field. Cosmic Microwave Background COBE CMB Measurement

CMB spectrum is that of a nearly perfect blackbody with a temperature of / K. Observation matches predictions of the hot Big Bang theory extraordinarily well. Deviation from perfect black body spectrum less than 0.03 % Nearly all of the radiant energy of the Universe was released within the first year after the Big Bang.

How did we get from there… … to here?

Time

What is Matter Made Of? Fire Water Earth Air … that is, according to the Greeks!

Click an element for more information: ** Groups are noted by 3 notation conventions. Mendeleev’s Periodic Table of Elements

What is Matter Made Of? An atom contains a nucleus... …which contains protons and neutrons... …which contain up and down quarks.

Elementary Particles … and gluons are the guards... Set the Quarks Free !!! How? Create a Quark- Gluon Plasma ! Quarks are confined (hadrons)...

Quarks Flavors and Families light and abundant heavier, rare very heavy, very rare

What is a Quark-Gluon Plasma?

Phase Transitions ICE WATER STEAM Add heat Quark Gluon Plasma is another phase of matter!

Phases of Water Pressure

How to Create a Quark-Gluon Plasma

How to create a Quark-Gluon Plasma

Quark Gluon Plasma QuarksQuarks Quark-GluonPlasmaQuark-GluonPlasma RHIC Collision KeyKey GluonsGluons

RHIC: Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY Long Island New York City

The RHIC Complex 1. Tandem Van de Graaff 2. Heavy Ion Transfer Line 3. Booster 4. Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) 5. AGS-to-RHIC Transfer Line 6. RHIC ring 1. Tandem Van de Graaff 2. Heavy Ion Transfer Line 3. Booster 4. Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) 5. AGS-to-RHIC Transfer Line 6. RHIC ring

Inside the RHIC Ring Underground tunnel Super-conducting magnets cooled by liquid helium 4.5 K) 1740 Magnets 2.4 Mile circumference Underground tunnel Super-conducting magnets cooled by liquid helium 4.5 K) 1740 Magnets 2.4 Mile circumference

RHIC Beam Collisions Gold nuclei Traveling at near light speed % actually… Hit head-on Crash through each other Release shower of particles Gold nuclei Traveling at near light speed % actually… Hit head-on Crash through each other Release shower of particles

RHIC Beam Collisions Approach Collision Particle Shower Collision time ~ seconds

Actual RHIC Collisions Each collision produces thousands of particles! Collision measured in the Star Detector

Measuring RHIC Collisions Four complementary experiments

Who’s Involved in RHIC? People from around the world

The STAR Experiment

Star Experiment (Construction)

Faculty : Rene Bellwied Tom Cormier Sean Gavin Claude Pruneau Sergei Voloshin Students: Maria Castro Alex Stolpovsky David Bower Saumitra Chowdhury Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Vishist Mandapaka 5 recent graduates WSU Relativistic Heavy Ion Group

Wayne State Contribution to STAR/RHIC Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT) Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EMC)

Charged particles produced in a Single Au + Au collision at an energy of 130 A GeV (25.6 TeV)

STAR TPC

Pad readout 2 × 12 super-sectors 60 cm 127 cm 190 cm Outer sector 6.2 × 19.5 mm 2 pad 3940 pads Inner sector 2.85 × 11.5 mm 2 pad 1750 pads

JT: 48 The Berkeley Lab O STAR Pixel Pad Readout Readout arranged like the face of a clock - 5,690 pixels per sector

Momentum Measurement ++ B=0.5 T Collision Vertex Trajectory is a helix in 3D; a circle in the transverse plane Radius: R

Multiplicity dN h -/d  |  =0 = 280  1  20 dN ch /d  |  =0 = 567  1  38 38%  pp 52%  SPS Multiplicity dominated by Geometry Relatively flat in  (  1.) Centrality Consistent with other experiments

Transverse Spectra STAR Preliminary Power Law: A (1+p t /p 0 ) - n =0.508  0.012GeV/c (top 5%), increases from pp, SPS

Scaling Saturation model: J. Schaffner-Blielich, et al. nucl-th/ D. Kharzeev, et al. hep-ph/

Proton, Anti-proton Small PID range Finite Baryon Stopping Low net baryon density High total baryon production

 p/p ratio RHIC: 1/3 from transport 2/3 proton from production (how?) (AGS: ; SPS: 1/10) Small centrality dependence  Small effect of  p absorption? NA44 STAR

Antinuclei 1 fm

Results Very high temperature achieved Collective/hydrodynamic flow Saturation of strange particle production. Modification of matter properties. Accumulating evidence that a “new” phase of matter is produced in Au+Au collisions.

Conclusions A virtual journey from our solar system outward towards to distant galaxies and backward in time to the big bang. QGP existed for a time of 1 micro-second after the big-bang. Production of QGP studied at BNL in high energy gold on gold collisions. Exciting results and preliminary evidence of a new form of matter.

RHIC Web Pages rhic15.physics.wayne.edu rhic15.physics.wayne.edu