E917 at the AGS: High Density Baryon Matter

Nuclear matter of high density is created during the collisions of Au+Au nuclei using the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) located at Brookhaven National Laboratory.1, 2 Whether the formation of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) occurs during these heavy-ion collisions, or even if it is possible to extract an unambiguous signal of its existence from the background of hadronic debris, remains highly speculative. Regardless of whether a QGP is created, the potential exists to do a great deal of interesting and exciting physics with the high density baryonic matter created during the Au+Au collisions at the AGS.