RHIC Animations and Multimedia

A Virtual Tour of the RHIC Complex

An animation that follows a Gold ion as it travels through the RHIC accelerator complex to the experiments. The animation concludes with a fly-by of RHIC's four major experiments. This animation has been updated for the 2004 and 2005 RHIC runs.

Production, narration, and music by Jeffery Mitchell.

Please show the credit "Animation courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

Length: 1 minute, 55 seconds

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A Virtual Tour of the RHIC Complex: Spin Configuration

An animation that follows polarized protons as they travel through the RHIC accelerator complex to the experiments. The arrows indicate the direction of each proton's spin. The animation concludes with a fly-by of the RHIC experiments running during the spin program.

Production and music by Jeffery Mitchell.

Please show the credit "Animation courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

Length: 1 minute, 17 seconds

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Exploring the Universe Within

A short documentary movie overviewing the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, its experiments, and its purpose.
Produced by Alex Reben of BNL Video. Narrated by Jack Marburger, who is currently the Presidential Science Advisor to George W. Bush. Dr. Marburger was the Director of the laboratory when the video was produced.

Please show the credit: "Video courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you show this movie.

Length: 7 minutes

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Collisions at RHIC

An illustrative animation of a variety of relativistic heavy ion collisions that have been provided by RHIC.
Production and music by Jeffery Mitchell. Simulation provided by the UrQMD Collaboration.

Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory). Simulation by the UrQMD Collaboration" if you use these animations.

Length: Several collisions movie - 45 seconds
Individual collision movies - 12 seconds

  • Download the movies:

    • PHENIX's View of a Collision

    An animation of particles traveling through the PHENIX detector after a heavy ion collision in RHIC. Each type of particle is a different color.

    Production and music by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

    Length: 13 seconds

    Download the movie:

    STAR's View of a Collision

    An animation of particles traveling through the STAR detector after a heavy ion collision in RHIC. Each type of particle is a different color.

    Production and music by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

    Length: 11 seconds

    Download the movie:

    PHENIX Construction

    A time-lapse movie showing the construction of the PHENIX detector.

    Produced by Tom Shea and Don Lynch.

    Please show the credit "Video courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this movie.

    Length: 4 minutes

    Download the movie:

     

    RHIClets

    Interactive Java games about RHIC and RHIC physics. Can you save the universe?

    Written by Jeffery Mitchell for the BNL/BSA Online Classroom.

    Play the RHIClet games:

     

    Birdseye

    Interactive PHENIX Event Display in your browser. View real RHIC events in 3 dimensions!

    Written by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory).

    Fire up Birdseye:

     

    The Perfect Liquid at RHIC

    		An illustrative animation contrasting a gas phase of matter with the perfect liquid phase of matter now believed to be produced in RHIC heavy ion collisions.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell for Brookhaven National Laboratory

    Please show the credit "Animation courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

    Length: 6 seconds, 13 seconds.

    Download the movie:

     

    Jet Suppression at RHIC

    		An illustrative animation of the jet suppression effect at RHIC
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory)" if you use this animation.

    Length: 9 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    Elliptic Flow at RHIC

    		An illustrative animation of the elliptic flow effect at RHIC
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory)" if you use this animation.

    Length: 27 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    A RHIC Au+Au Collision in PHENIX

    		A rotating display of a real head-on collision of two gold ions recorded by the PHENIX Experiment.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell and the PHENIX Experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider" if you use this animation.

    Length: 9 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    A RHIC Au+Au Collision in STAR

    		A rotating display of a real head-on collision of two gold ions recorded by the STAR Experiment.
    Images provided by Jens Berger and the STAR Collaboration at RHIC

    Please show the credit "Animation courtesy of the STAR Experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider" if you show any version of this movie.

    Length: 12 seconds

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    A Virtual Tour of PHENIX: RHIC Run 2

    		An animation that highlights the detectors in the PHENIX experiment as it was configured in RHIC's second run. The animation concludes with data from a real Au+Au RHIC collision.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell for the PHENIX Experiment

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell and the PHENIX Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider" if you use this animation.

    Length: 1 minute, 27 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    A Gold-on-Gold Collision at RHIC

    		An animation that shows the results of a simulation of what a head-on gold-on-gold collision might look like at RHIC. In the end, over 6000 particles are produced. This uses a different simulation than the other animations on this page.
    Animation by Jeffery Mitchell. VNI model by Klaus Kinder-Geiger and Ron Longacre.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell. VNI model by Klaus Kinder-Geiger and Ron Longacre, Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

    Length: 5 seconds

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    Creating a Quark-Gluon Plasma

    		An animation that illustrates the steps necessary for RHIC to create a Quark-Gluon Plasma.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory)" if you use this animation.

    Length: 1 minute, 4 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    A 360 degree view of the PHENIX Experiment

    		A virtual reality 360 degree view of the inside of the PHENIX experimental hall. This is a Quicktime VR movie, so you may need to download the Quicktime VR Plug-in for this to work.
    Produced by Achim Franz.

    Please show the credit "Movie by Achim Franz and the PHENIX Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider." if you use this movie.

    Drag the mouse to rotate the view

    Download the movie:

     

    Probing a Relativistic Heavy Ion Collision

    		An illustrative animation of the benefits of measuring photons and electrons, which do not interact as they leave the collision region. Photons and electrons provide an undisturbed view of a Quark-Gluon Plasma. The PHENIX experiment specializes in measuring these particles.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory" if you use this animation.

    Length: 7 seconds

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    Principles of the STAR Time Projection Chamber

    		An animation that illustrates how the STAR Time Projection Chamber detector is able to reconstruct a three-dimensional image of a RHIC heavy ion collision. There are 3 separate animations included here.
    Produced by Gene van Buren of the STAR Collaboration.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Gene van Buren and the STAR Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider" if you use this animation.

    Length: 10 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    Charge Fluctuations

    		A pair of animations that introduce the concept behind the analysis of net charge fluctuations of a volume measured by a detector.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory)" if you use these movies.

    Length: 8 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    Hadrons and Quarks

    		A pair of animations showing a rotating nucleus that contains either quarks bound in hadrons, or quarks that are not confined in hadrons (Quark-Gluon Plasma).
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory)" if you use these movies.

    Length: 8 seconds

    Download the movie:

     

    The Concept of Balance Functions

    		An animation that introduces the concept behind the analysis of net charge balance functions.
    Produced by Jeffery Mitchell.

    Please show the credit "Animation by Jeffery Mitchell (Brookhaven National Laboratory)" if you use this movie.

    Length: 3 seconds

    Download the movie:

    RHIC and PHENIX Multimedia Archives - some of the early animations.

    Animations in the News

    Related Animations from other folks

    Maintained by Jeffery T. Mitchell.
    Last modified 7/9/08