The onset of classical QCD dynamics in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Abstract

The experimental results on hadron production obtained recently at RHIC offer a new prospective on the energy dependence of the nuclear collision dynamics. In particular, it is possible that parton saturation -- the phenomenon likely providing initial conditions for the multi--particle production at RHIC energies -- may have started to set in central heavy ion collisions already around the highest SPS energy. We examine this scenario, and make predictions based on high density QCD for the forthcoming 22 GeV run at RHIC.