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Overview/Summary
Introduction:
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- Goal of high-energy A+A collisions ?
- Study/characterize Quantum Chromo (many-body) Dynamics
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- (By comparing A+A to: p+A = “cold QCD medium”, p+p = “QCD vacuum” colls.)
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Head-on Au+Au collisions @ RHIC energies (Ös=200 GeV) produce a strongly interacting system:
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- with the highest energy densities ever achieved at the lab: ε > 5 GeV/fm3
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- with a strong degree of collectivity at very short time-scales: t0 < 1 fm/c
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- that behaves like an nearly ideal (hydrodynamical) fluid: dN/dpT (pT<2 GeV/c)
- that reaches chemical equilibrium at (or before) hadronization: Tchem~ Tcrit
- with the largest initial gluon densities ever measured: dNg/dy ~ 1000
- with degrees of freedom consistent with constituent quarks
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Summary & open questions
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