Experimental studies of particle production in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions

Abstract: This thesis is about high energy heavy ion physics. Two major experiments, the WA98 at CERN and the PHENIX at Brookhaven National Laboratory, are described. Results from data analysis from both experiments are presented. The WA98 chapter presents particle identification methods and phi-meson measurements. A procedure for calculating efficiency maps for tracking chambers is discussed. The PHENIX chapter gives a technical overview of the Pad Chamber reconstruction software and ends with an analysis of single particle spectra based on 65+65 A GeV Au+Au data. The thesis is based on five papers. The first four describe the development of measurement and analysis methods, while the last paper was the first physics paper from the PHENIX experiment and is about charged particle multiplicity.