Thesis Committee: Steffen Bass, Haiyan Gao, Ronen Plesser, Calvin Howell (exofficio non-voting member)
ABSTRACT: This project studies strangeness production by simulating the time-evolution of a heavy-ion collision using a microscopic transport model. The investigation of strangeness production in relativistic heavy ion collisions has been proven to be a powerful tool for the study of highly excited nuclear matter, both in terms of the reaction dynamics and in terms of its hadrochemistry. Furthermore, strangeness enhanement has been suggested as a signature of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) formation. In this project, the authors address topics in strangeness production that have not yet been extensively investigated - the dynamics of initial strangeness production, how it relates to the data, and what we can learn from it. This manuscript describes the entire scope of the project: (1) research methodology, (2) the computational model used to simulate heavy-ion collisions, i.e., the Parton Cascade Model (PCM), and (3) an analysis of the strangeness production in their calculations in the framework of the PCM.
Here is the thesis in PDF: dchang_thesis.pdf (about 0.54 MBytes)