The essentials of the equation-of-motion (EOM) approach are given and some of its significant and interesting results are described. A framework for the theoretical description of high-energy heavy-ion (HE-HI) collisions is presented; specifically included are a critical assessment of various approaches--EOM calculations, Boltzmann equations/cascade calculations, and hydrodynamics--their relationships and their respective domains of applicability, if any, to HE-HI collisions. 11 figures, 3 tables. (RWR).
Written primarily for researchers and graduate students who are new in this emerging field, this book develops the necessary tools so that readers can follow the latest advances in this subject. Readers are first guided to examine the basic informations on nucleon-nucleon collisions and the use of the nucleus as an arena to study the interaction of one nucleon with another. A good survey of the relation between nucleon-nucleon and nucleus-nucleus collisions provides the proper comparison to study phenomena involving the more exotic quark-gluon plasma. Properties of the quark-gluon plasma and signatures for its detection are discussed to aid future searches and exploration for this exotic matter. Recent experimental findings are summarised.
As an alternative to hydrodynamical ways of treating heavy-ion collisions, a microscopic, rapid (and therefore economical) method is investigated. Head-on 235U + 235U collisions are considered. Attention is given to particle density during collision. (JFP).
This book originated in the Workshop on "Hadronic Matter at Extreme Energy Density," held at the Ettore Majorana Center in Erice, October 13-21, 1978. The lectures have been expanded to their present size, and the contributions of seven seminars have been represented by abstracts which should stimulate the reader's interest and guide him to the original literature. The title of the book perhaps does not fully represent its content but still is a good indication of the conceptual motiva tion of our Workshop. The development of physics in recent years has filled in the first details of the grand design which was initiated with the theory of general relativity and aspires to a synthesis of all the different interactions. However, this development has not been a linear one but .has followed a divided pattern: general relativity had its phenomenological domain in cosmology and had little to do with high-energy elementary particle physics. It was progress in the knowledge of symmetries in particle physics that fueled the advance toward the present formulation of supergravity, thus help ing to heal this historical separation. The great program would not have advanced so far if our attention had all the time stayed focused at infinity, where the great issues are.
We study the role of the nuclear equation of state in intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions using microscopic dynamical calculations. The relevant properties of the nuclear equation of state, and their manifestation in fragmentation reactions and Bevalac-energy collisions are reviewed. The available data on these collisions is summarized. We calculate the disassembly of hot charged classical drops that have an equation of state similar to that of nuclear matter. It is found that the region of adiabatic instability of the liquid-vapor phase transition is responsible for the rapid fragmentation of hot systems. For cooler drops, we find that this unstable region causes large deformations in the droplet shape that are exploited by the Coulomb force, resulting in fast binary and multiple fission decay modes. We discuss the use of the Vlasov-Nordheim equation in calculating heavy-ion collisions, and present a new method for solving the nuclear Vlasov equation with far greater accuracy than other existing methods. This method is used to study the role of the quantum Fermi motion is heavy-ion collisions. We also study the accuracy of Vlasov-Nordheim theory in the classical limit (i.e., Vlasov-Boltzmann) by comparing its predictions with the exact results of a classical model of heavy-ion collisions. It is shown that, although the Vlasov-Boltzmann theory can reproduce the general trends, it fails to reproduce the correct values of several specific observables. In this limited study, we do not find that the theory is very useful for deducing that incompressibility of matter from collision data.
