Transverse and zero degree energies observed in /sup 16/O induced nuclear collisions at 60 and 200 A GeV

Results from QCD calculations indicate that a sufficiently high energy densities, nuclear matter may undergo a transition to a phase in which quarks and gluons are deconfined. Nuclear collisions at very high energies are believed to be well suited from producing the conditions required for this phase transition to take place. At the CERN SPS, sufficiently high energy densities can only be reached if the degree of nuclear stopping involved is sufficiently high. Consequently, one of the main goals of the recent experiments with oxygen nuclei is to obtain estimates of the extent of nuclear stopping and of the resulting energy densities. Such information can be obtained by means of calorimetric measurements of transverse energies and of the energy at zero degrees (+-0.3)degree)). In this paper we concentrate on the understanding of systematic variation with target size and projectile energy, and of the key role of nuclear geometry. 5 refs., 3 figs.