Energy density, stopping and flow in 10-20 A GeV heavy ion collisions

The Lorentz invariant molecular dynamics approach (RQMD) is employed to investigate the space-time evolution of heavy ion collisions at AGS energies (Ekin=10A-15A GeV). The calculation for various nucleus nucleus reactions at AGS energies show a high degree of stopping power. The importance of secondary rescattering at these beam energies is demonstrated. The computed nucleon rapidity distributions are compared to available experimental data. It is demonstrated that nonlinear, collective effects like full stopping of target and projectile and matter flow could be expected for heavy projectiles only. For nuclear collisions in the Booster era at BNL we predict a stimulating future: Then a nearly equilibrated, long lived (8 fm/c) 'macroscopic' volume of very high energy density (>1 GeV/fm3) and baryon density (>5 times ground state density) is produced. (orig.)