Transverse Energy Production at RHIC
We study the mechanism of transverse energy (ET) production in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. The time evolution starting from the initial energy loss to the final ET production is closely examined in transport models. The relationship between the experimentally measured ET distribution and the maximum energy density achieved is discussed. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) will provide us with a unique opportunity to study matter under extreme conditions. The transition from hadronic degrees of freedom to quark and gluon degrees of freedom is expected from collisions at these energies. The transverse energy spectrum will be among the very first results from RHIC. One important question we would like to answer from the day-one physics at RHIC is the maximum energy density reached in central Au+Au collisions. Lattice QCD 1 calculations give us the critical energy density for the transition to quark-gluon plasma. In this talk, we explore the relationship between the transverse energy spectrum and the energy density, and discuss the possibility of experimentally determine the maximum energy density. A general framework for computing and analysing energy-momentum tensor is introduced. As the first part of this study, we construct the energymomentum tensor for simulated events from transport model RQMD 2 . We also find the transverse energy, the equation of state, and the energy density for these events. Currently we are using our techniques to study the parton