Study of Relativistic Nucleus - Nucleus Collisions

The aim of the experiment is to survey the reaction mechanisms involved in the collision of 60~GeV/nucleon and 200~GeV/nucleon light ions ($^{16}$0 and $^{32}$S provided by a new GSI-LBL injector) with different nuclei, to determine the stopping power of nuclear matter and to search for evidence of the formation of quark matter by comparison to hadron-nucleus reactions at the same incident energies. \\ The experimental set-up consists of a 2 m Streamer Chamber in the Vertex Magnet used to detect all the charged particles emerging from the interaction as well as the neutral strange particles that decay inside the chamber. The high energy of the forward-going particles are detected by four sets of calorimeters. A highly segmented Photon Position Detector (PPD) backed up by a 240 segment Ring Calorimeter will cover one unit of rapidity around mid-rapidity. An Intermediate Calorimeter will cover the rest of the forward phase space except for the region around beam rapidity, where a Veto Calorimeter will detect beam spectators. For each event the charged particle multiplicity, the proton and pion rapidity distribution, their transverse momenta, the energy flow and the strange particle production will be determined.