NA49 experiment

[1] The experiment used a large-acceptance hadron detector (a time projection chamber) to investigate reactions induced by the collision of various heavy ions (such as those of lead) on targets made of a variety of elements.

The purpose of NA49 was to study the production of charged hadrons and neutral strange particles to search for the prediction of the deconfinement transition by the lattice QCD.

Following the Big Bang, the Universe is supposed to have consisted of Quark Matter, and the investigation into this state could provide data for astrophysical studies.

A thin metal foil target is bombarded with a beam of heavy nuclei accelerated close to the speed of light.

The first two TPCs were inside dipole magnets with superconducting coils, used to determine particle momentum from the bending of charged-particle trajectories.

[8] The energy density created in the collisions of the NA49 experiment was determined to be larger than the critical value, and therefore high enough to probe into the quark-gluon matter.

The image shows a bunch of hadrons emerging from the collision by breaking apart the ions. One of such collisions will eventually lead to the production of quark-gluon plasma.
Reinhard Stock (front) and Peter Seyboth (back), the NA49 spokespersons in front of the NA49 detector at CERN.
NA49 vertex time projection chamber 2 inside superconducting magnet