Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Neutron stars are important laboratories for the physics of high-density matter. Unlike particles in relativistic heavy-ion colliders, the matter in the cores of neutron stars has a thermal energy that is much less than its rest-mass energy. Various researchers have speculated whether neutron star cores contain primarily nucleons, or whether degrees of freedom such as hyperons, quark matter, or strange matter are prevalent (see Lattimer Prakash 2001 for a recent review of high-density equations of state). 

Basically, one distinguishes between pair creation, where the electron and positron are produced in free (continuum) states and pair creation with an electron in a bound state of one of the ions, for example, in a K-shell state. The latter process is also called bound-free pair production. Pair creation with electron capture into a bound state of the ion changes the charge state of the ion represents one of the major loss processes affecting the stability of ion beams in relativistic heavy-ion colliders. The corresponding cross-section for electron capture is of the order of 100 bam for RHIC energies in U92+(100 GeV/u) -I- U92+(100 GeV/u) collisions and determines the lifetime of ionic charge states in the beam and then the luminosity. 

HGURE 8.31 The phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. The antiproton-induced cold compression (c.c.) takes place at low temperatures and high densities, a regime that cannot be accessed in heavy-ion collisions. The curves with arrows denote dynamic trajectories of matter in heavy-ion collisions as expected at the future GSI facility and the relativistic heavy-ion collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. 

A FIGU RE 21.5 The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. This particle accelerator is located at... 

National Nuclear Data Center, NNDC (BNL), http //www.nndc.bnl.gov/ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, http //www.pnl.gov Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), http //www.bnl.gov/RHIC Research Reactors Database, http //www.iaea.or.at/worldatoin/rrdb/ RIKEN Accelerator Research FadKty (RIKEN), http //www.rarLriken.go.jp The Svedberg Laboratory (TSL), http //www.tsl.uu.se The Texas A M Cyclotron Institute, http //cyclotron.tamu.edu... 

MCGE Membrane-Coated Graphite Electrode RHIC Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider... 

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