Thousands of charged particles emerge from a collision of two gold nuclei inside the STAR detector at RHIC.

The highest energies ever recorded in a laboratory were reported in 2000, when Brookhaven National Laboratory began operating its newest "atom smasher," the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which collides nuclei at high energies. The first collisions of gold nuclei occurred in June 2000, at energies of 26 trillion electron volts per interaction. Data from this first run imply that conditions will be favorable for creating and studying the quark-gluon plasma—very hot, dense states of nuclear matter that have not existed since microseconds after the Big Bang creation of the universe. The RHIC was made possible by many advances in accelerator technology, instrumentation, and magnets supported by the Office of Science. Images of the event were recorded in stunning three-dimensional detail by the STAR detector, developed in a collaboration of several national laboratories. The RHIC uses as a heavy ion injector the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, which over four decades has hosted research leading to three Nobel Prizes. New computational methods will enable scientists to model and estimate the properties of subatomic particles and phenomena produced at the RHIC.

Scientific Impact: Through experiments at the RHIC, scientists will gain insights into the fundamental nature of matter and how has it has evolved since at the dawn of the universe. Development of these machines led to advances in different areas of science, including computer analysis of huge volumes of data and production of superconducting magnets.

Social Impact: Research on fundamental properties of matter typically yields significant technological advances. The RHIC is also a training ground for the next generation of physicists, who may go on to develop new types of computers, medical imaging technologies, cancer treatments, or other ways of observing and controlling the physical world.

Reference: RHIC Design Manual, http://www.rhichome.bnl.gov/NT-share/rhicdm/decades.htm

URL: http://www.rhic.bnl.gov

Technical Contact: Dr. Thomas Kirk, tkirk@bnl.gov

Press Contact: Jeff Sherwood, DOE Office of Public Affairs, 202-586-5806

SC-Funding Office: Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics