Summary (I)

• 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 (Ös ~ 200 GeV) Au-Au collisions.
  • Analyzing the experimental probes (global, hard) that are sensitive to this new state of matter.

• PHENIX Run-1 data:

  • Au+Au @ ÖsNN = 130 GeV. 5M events, L ~ mb-1
  • Charged hadrons, p0, and e± at mid-rapidity (|h|<0.35)