Summary

• Scientific goals of high-energy heavy-ion physics:

  • Investigate the QCD phase diagram.
  • Produce/study the QGP in the laboratory: color deconfinement & chiral symmetry restoration
  • Probe the quark-hadron phase transition of the early Universe.
  • Study high gluon density & small-x physics.

• Means:

  • Producing the densest and hottest matter ever formed on Earth in high-energy (s ~ 200 GeV) Au-Au collisions.
  • Analyzing the experimental probes (global, hard, ...) that are sensitive to this new state of matter.

• PHENIX data:

  • Au+Au @ sNN = 130 GeV: inclusive charged hadrons, 0, p,pbar, e
  • Au+Au, p+p @ sNN = 200 GeV: inclusive spectra, azimuth. corr., J/, ...
  • d+Au @ sNN = 200 GeV: inclusive charged hadrons, 0