Critical events and intermittency in nuclear collisions

The structure of events in relativistic heavy ion collisions (RHIC), associated with chiral QCD phase transition, is investigated. In particular the density fluctuations of pions, emitted from the excited vacuum (at T approximate to T-c), are studied and classified in terms of intermittency patterns in rapidity space. For this purpose a Monte Carlo simulation of critical events in the central region is presented, on the basis of the O(4) theory of chiral phase transition. The universal character of these events is revealed and the predictions of the theory are discussed in connection with event by event measurements in current and future experiments with relativistic heavy ions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.