Signals of spinodal phase decomposition in high-energy nuclear collisions

Abstract

High-energy nuclear collisions produce quark-gluon plasmas that expand and hadronize. If the associated phase transition is of first order then the hadronization should proceed through a spinodal phase separation. We explore here the possibility of identifying the associated clumping by analysis of suitable N-particle momentum correlations.

Comments: 7 pages, incl 4 ps figures