Streamer chamber experiments

The reactions 40 Ar + KCl at eight energies from 0.36 to 1.8 GeV/u, 4 He + KCl at 977 and 40 Ar + Balg and 40 Ar + Pb 3 O 4 at 772 GeV/u measured in a Streamer Chamber experiment have been analyzed to determine the stopping power of nuclei, the degree of isotropy and thermalization achieved in central collisions, to search for collective expansion effects and to obtain compressional energies of bulk nuclear matter. Observables used were pion and proton exclusive final state measurements, ratios of total transverse to longitudinal momentum per event, momentum flux and Λ production. From the systematic discrepancy of the π − multiplicities produced in central collisions with respect to an intranuclear cascade model, compressional energies are extracted which fit a parabolic form of the nuclear matter equation of state with a compressibility constant of K = 240 MeV.