OSCAR II: PREDICTIONS FOR RHIC

July 8-16, 1999.

A RIKEN BNL Research Center Workshop

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Upton, NY, USA

Organizers
Yang Pang, pang@rhic.phys.columbia.edu,
Miklos Gyulassy, gyulassy@mail-cunuke.phys.columbia.edu,

Preliminary Program
http://penguin.phy.lbl.gov/www/riken/oscar2_program.html

Purpose

Overview
As you know, after a 20 year gestation period, RHIC will be born this summer! While it has been fun to speculate over the years on what might be observed in this new energy domain, the cruel real world data will become available in a few short months. The purpose of the OSCAR II workshop hosted by the Riken Brookhaven Research Center at BNL is to buckle down and make PREdictions, yes- before the data arrive. The workshop emphasize number crunching and generating testable predictions incorporating the actual experimental acceptances that each of the four experiments will provide us. July will be a very exciting time at BNL as the first hints of undigested preliminary data may begin to float around the hallways.

There are pessimists who feel that nothing can be predicted and we must settle for qualitative fireball fits. Others enjoy idealized plasma scenarios with no reality constraints from pp and pA phenomenology. OSCAR I was organized two years ago to overcome this problem and establish open standards to provide a discipline scientific approach to the subject.

Monte Carlo numerical techniques to solve transport models are essential for interpreting and predicting multi-particle observables in heavy ion physics. Correlations between observables and global event trigger characterizations are very difficult in such complex reactions. The Gluaber model is not good enough and at RHIC the half-half mix of hard and soft multiparticle physics requires much more elaborate calculational schemes. { Common standards, documentation, version control, and accessibility} are essential to apply objective scientific criteria for evaluating the many physical and algorithmic assumptions. The first RIKEN Research Center workshop in June 1997 addressed this problem by establishing open standards for the development, version control, testing, and documentation for original codes for applications to nuclear collisions at RHIC energies. The results of that workshop can be found on the Web at http://rhic.phys.columbia.edu/rhic/

OSCAR II aims to to update nuclear collision event generators and documentation and specifically to converge of a set of RHIC predictions from the available models in a common format. Experimentalists will join the working groups to define the acceptance filters and trigger observables. Trivial geometric ambiguities such as impact parameter choice must be avoided. The day 1 physics will be the first priority, dN_ch/dy, dN/dp_T, dE_T/dy,dN/dE_T,.... These observables test our understanding of the total entropy production and carry hints of any pdV work. Global varibales such as elliping flow v_2 vs dN/dy correlations, transverse flow, and event by event fluctuations of dE_T/dyd\phi will be a second goal. Beyond that pion correlation predictions, (anti)hyperon yield ratios and stoping power, dilepton yields and open and hidden charm production, and jet quenching observables that while requiring several years experimentally will be addressed during our workshop.

Workshop Schedule

Registration
Please fill out the online registration form at:
http://thy.phy.bnl.gov/www/riken.html/oscar2_reg.html

Additional Information
Information about travel, etc., is also available from the RIKEN BNL Research Center workshop page
http://thy.phy.bnl.gov/www/riken.html/workshops.html

List of Invited Participants: