Creating and probing high density matter at RHIC Original Research Article

In the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, results from RHIC depict formation of a dense system at an energy density greater than 5 GeV/fm3, well above that where hadrons exist. Statistical models that describe RHIC data indicate a temperature and baryo-chemical potential at the deconfinement phase transition boundary predicted by lattice QCD calculations. The anisotropic collective flow observed in collisions at RHIC provides direct evidence of strong pressure gradients in the highly interacting dense medium. Hard-scattering, suppression of hadrons at large transverse momentum, and quenching of di-jets are observed in central Au + Au collisions and provide evidence for large energy loss of partons traversing the high density matter created at RHIC.