Diffraction 2012 Workshop: STAR Overview Talk

 Abstract:

Title: STAR: Characterizing Hot Quark Matter
Author: G. Van Buren for the STAR Collaboration

With discovery of Quark Gluon Plasma well-established at RHIC, the STAR Experiment continues to work towards a more complete understanding of properties of the produced matter, and the conditions necessary for the phase change. We will present recent progress on characterizing quark matter at high temperature through a wide variety of measurement techniques in STAR's repertoire: from observing species suppression and correlations, to determining statistical moments and prospecting for symmetry-breaking.

RHIC has further embarked on a program to study this matter through a range of conditions achieved by varying the collision energies, which are hoped to span and locate the QCD critical point. We will show how STAR's toolkit is already providing intriguing results from the the first phase of this program and discuss possible future directions for the program.

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Versions of the talk available as attached PDFs labeled GVanBuren_STARoverview*.pdf

Versions of the proceedings available as attached PDFs labeled GVanBuren_STAR_Highlights*.pdf

-Gene