Physics opportunities with relativistic heavy ion accelerators

The physics motivation for a relativistic heavy ion collider with energies of 100 GeV/Amu x 100 Gev/Amu for nuclei of A-200 are: this will allow the production in the laboratory of a new state of matter-the quark gluon plasma, the study of such interactions will provide an experimental test of statistical quantum chromodynamics (QCD), i.e., a look at the properties of the QCD vacuum at large distances, such reactions will simulate the conditions of the early universe, and such a collider will allow us to delve into the unknown. At present the Bevalac at Berkeley is the premier facility for the study of heavy ions with a center of mass capability of 1 GeV/Amu x 1 GeV/Amu. In the near term this capability will be increased at the AGS at BNL (6 GeV/Amu x 6 GeV/Amu) and at the CERN SPS (10 GeV/Amu x 10 GeV/Amu)