Transverse momentum spectra and yields of hadrons are measured by the PHENIX collaboration in Au + Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The time-of-flight resolution allows identification of pions to transverse momenta of 2 GeV/c and protons and antiprotons to 4 GeV/c. The yield of pions rises approximately linearly with the number of nucleons participating in the collision, while the number of kaons, protons, and antiprotons increases more rapidly. The shape of the momentum distribution changes between peripheral and central collisions. Simultaneous analysis of all the p_T spectra indicates radial collective expansion, consistent with predictions of hydrodynamic models. Hydrodynamic analysis of the spectra shows that the expansion velocity increases with collision centrality and collision energy. This expansion boosts the particle momenta, causing the yield from soft processes to exceed that for hard to large transverse momentum, perhaps as large as 3 GeV/c.

We present inclusive charged hadron elliptic flow v_2 measured over the pseudorapidity range |\eta| < 0.35 in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. Results for v_2 are presented over a broad range of transverse momentum (p_T = 0.2-8.0 GeV/c) and centrality (0-60%). In order to study non-flow effects that are not correlated with the reaction plane, as well as the fluctuations of v_2, we compare two different analysis methods: (1) event plane method from two independent sub-detectors at forward (|\eta| = 3.1-3.9) and beam (|\eta| > 6.5) pseudorapidities and (2) two-particle cumulant method extracted using correlations between particles detected at midrapidity. The two event-plane results are consistent within systematic uncertainties over the measured p_T and in centrality 0-40%. There is at most 20% difference of the v_2 between the two event plane methods in peripheral (40-60%) collisions. The comparisons between the two-particle cumulant results and the standard event plane measurements are discussed.

The first measurement of direct photons in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV is presented. The direct photon signal is extracted as a function of the Au+Au collision centrality and compared to NLO pQCD calculations. The direct photon yield is shown to scale with the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions for all centralities.

The invariant differential cross section for inclusive electron production in $p + p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$~GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the transverse momentum range $0.4 \le p_T \le 5.0$~GeV/$c$ in the central rapidity region ($|\eta| \le 0.35$). The contribution to the inclusive electron spectrum from semileptonic decays of hadrons carrying heavy flavor, {\it i.e.} charm quarks or, at high $p_T$, bottom quarks, is determined via three independent methods. The resulting electron spectrum from heavy flavor decays is compared to recent leading and next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations. The total cross section of charm quark-antiquark pair production is determined to be $\sigma_{c\bar{c}} = 0.92 \pm 0.15 {\rm (stat.)} \pm 0.54 {\rm (sys.)}$~mb.

Bose-Einstein correlations of charged kaons are measured for Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV and are compared to charged pion probes, which have a larger hadronic scattering cross section. Three dimensional Gaussian source radii are extracted, along with a one-dimensional kaon emission source function. The centrality dependences of the three Gaussian radii are well described by a single linear function if N_part^1/3 with zero intercept. Imaging analysis shows a deviation from a Gaussian tail at r >~ 10 fm, although the bulk emission at lower radius is well-described by a Gaussian. The presence of a non-Gaussian tail in the kaon source reaffirms that the particle emission region in a heavy ion collision is extended, and that similar measurements with pions are not solely due to the decay of long-lived resonances.

Two particle correlations between identified meson and baryon trigger particles with 2.5 < p_T < 4.0 GeV/c and lower p_T charged hadrons have been measured at midrapidity by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC in p+p, d+Au and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The probability of finding a hadron near in azimuthal angle to the trigger particle is almost identical for leading mesons and baryons for non-central Au+Au. The yield for both trigger baryons and mesons is significantly higher in Au+Au than in p+p and d+Au, except for trigger baryons in central collisions. The baryon excess is likely to arise predominantly from hard scattering processes.

Differential elliptic flow (v_2) for phi mesons and (anti)deuterons (d^bar)d is measured for Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The v_2 for phi mesons follows the trend of lighter pi^+/- and K^+/- mesons, suggesting that ordinary hadrons interacting with standard hadronic cross sections are not the primary driver for elliptic flow development. The v_2 values for (d^bar)d suggest that elliptic flow is additive for composite particles. This further validation of the universal scaling of v_2 per constituent quark for baryons and mesons suggests that partonic collectivity dominates the transverse expansion dynamics.

Correlations between p and pbar's at transverse momenta typical of enhanced baryon production in Au+Au collisions are reported. The PHENIX experiment measures same and opposite sign baryon pairs in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. Correlated production of p and p^bar with the trigger particle from the range 2.5 < p_T < 4.0 GeV/c and the associated particle with 1.8 < p_T < 2.5 GeV/c is observed to be nearly independent of the centrality of the collisions. Same sign pairs show no correlation at any centrality. The conditional yield of mesons triggered by baryons (and anti-baryons) and mesons in the same pT range rises with increasing centrality, except for the most central collisions, where baryons show a significantly smaller number of associated mesons. These data are consistent with a picture in which hard scattered partons produce correlated p and p^bar in the p_T region of the baryon excess.

Two particle azimuthal correlation functions are presented for charged hadrons produced in Au + Au collisions at RHIC sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV. The measurements permit determination of elliptic flow without event-by-event estimation of the reaction plane. The extracted elliptic flow values v_2 show significant sensitivity to both the collision centrality and the transverse momenta of emitted hadrons, suggesting rapid thermalization and relatively strong velocity fields. When scaled by the eccentricity of the collision zone, epsilon, the scaled elliptic flow shows little or no dependence on centrality for charged hadrons with relatively low p_T. A breakdown of this epsilon scaling is observed for charged hadrons with p_T > 1.0 GeV/c for the most central collisions.

A comprehensive survey of event-by-event fluctuations of charged hadron multiplicity in relativistic heavy ions is presented. The survey covers Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 62.4 and 200 GeV, and Cu+Cu collisions sqrt(s_NN) = 22.5, 62.4, and 200 GeV. Fluctuations are measured as a function of collision centrality, transverse momentum range, and charge sign. After correcting for non-dynamical fluctuations due to fluctuations in the collision geometry within a centrality bin, the remaining dynamical fluctuations expressed as the variance normalized by the mean tend to decrease with increasing centrality. The dynamical fluctuations are consistent with or below the expectation from a superposition of participant nucleon-nucleon collisions based upon p+p data, indicating that this dataset does not exhibit evidence of critical behavior in terms of the compressibility of the system. An analysis of Negative Binomial Distribution fits to the multiplicity distributions demonstrates that the heavy ion data exhibit weak clustering properties.