Realistic Expanding Source Model for Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions
An international search is currently underway for the quark-gluon plasma—a predicted new phase of nuclear matter where quarks roam almost freely throughout the medium instead of being confined to individual nucleons.1,2 Such a plasma could be formed through the compression and excitation that occur when nuclei collide at relativistic speeds. With increasing compression the nucleons overlap sufficiently that they should lose their individual identity and transform into deconfined quarks, and with increasing excitation the many pions that are produced overlap sufficiently that they should lose their individual identity and transform into deconfined quarks and anti-quarks.