Nuclear scientists are witnessing the dawn of a new era with the newly operating relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The machine offers the possibility for the first time to study strongly interacting many-body systems at energy densities great enough to certainly probe a new phase of matter: the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). These studies are likely to impact the understanding of physical systems across a reasonably wide range of science. Such groups as cosmologists, nuclear and particle physicists, as well as a whole host of development industries have a collective eye toward the outcome of questions to be addressed at RHIC. Of premier importance is the one which asks, can nuclear matter be heated and compressed to a stage where the quark and gluon constituents are liberated from their boundaries, and, more importantly, can signals be identified for clear evidence of quantum chromodynamic (QCD) matter? Addressing this represents the first step toward more fully understanding the subnuclear world, where a more complete knowledge of the physics stops, but where great opportunity begins.This research proposal concerns physics of particle production and collective nuclear effects in relativistic heavy ion reactions and concerns education training through mentoring students for industry and graduate school. Specific scientific focus is on those probes which have already been elevated to the level of candidate signatures for evidencing QGP. It will be increasingly more important as data emerge from RHIC to have all backgrounds for the various signals firmly in hand. Field theoretical methods and transport codes will be used to move forward and fill gaps in current understanding for dynamics of hadronic degrees of freedom. This will help enormously by establishing more stringent limits above which signals must reach before victory can be declared. A more complete physical picture will then present itself.
The larger goal of the project seeks to identify new and useful knowledge surrounding response of nuclei and nuclear matter to excitations very far from the ground state, and seeks to use these activities as pedagogical training grounds for beginning research students, preparing them to become professional research scientists and educators.