The heavy-ion group at IOP is involved in two experiments at CERN. The WA98 experiment and the ALICE experiment. In WA98 experiment the work currently being pursued is analysis of the data while that in ALICE we are involved in the detector designing and detector prototype testing.

We are actively involved in the analysis of data from WA98 experiment at CERN. The primary physical phenomena we are interested in are "FLOW" and "Disoriented Chiral Condensates (DCC)".

The search for DCC has gained a high importance because the study of domains of DCC would provide valuable information on the vacuum structure of the strong interaction and the nature of the chiral phase transition.

Initially we developed the analysis technique for the search of DCC. These methods are based on the event shape analysis technique and the discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) technique. The one based on the event shape analysis has already been published in Physics Letters B, and the one based on DWT has been accepted for publication in Physics Letters B.

Having developed the analysis tools and using the some of the techniques already existing we have then tried to analyse the WA98 data to look for presence of DCC. For this analysis a charge particle and a photon multiplicity measurement detector are most vital along with other trigger detectors. To carry out DCC study we have analysed the data of the Silicon Multiplicity Detector (SPMD) and the Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD), employed in the WA98 experiment. The Photon Multiplicity Detector is the contribution of the Indian group for the WA98 experiment. The event-by-event search for such rare events out of a large number of data is quite challenging. We have used the analysis techniques of DWT and Photon to Charge particle (Ng - N_hit) correlation to WA98 data to identify the exotic DCC events and give a limit to the possible size and probability of occurrence of DCC domains. This analysis is complete and has been submitted to our collaboration for approval so that it can be communicated to PRL. We shall shortly be analysing the data using the other techniques. Formation of quark-gluon-plasma (QGP) necessitates the existence of large energy densities, which can be estimated using hydrodynamical models. The hydrodynamical model description of the evolution of QGP predicts a collective flow of the colliding matter. We are analysing data taken from the PMD, the SPMD and the plastic ball detectors employed in WA98 experiment to look for the presence of collective flow of photons and charged particles (like pions and protons). We have used the established method of Fourier analysis to determine the azimuthal anisotropy present in the data. Using the PMD data we have estimated a 2-8% elliptic flow depending upon the centrality.

The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is designed to study heavy-ion collisions at LHC in order to probe the deconfinement transition and chiral-symmetry restoration. The contribution of Indian group is a Photon Multiplicity Detector. It is a preshower detector with fine granularity and full azimuthal coverage and having 1 unit pseudo-rapidity coverage and is expected to intercept 5000 photons. It is based on a cellular honeycomb gas proportional chamber design. A second preshower plane will be mounted behind the PMD to measure the electromagnetic transverse energy.

The Experimental High Energy Physics Group is involved in the following sectors. The simulation studies and designing of the prototype detector, testing of the detector at CERN, analysis of the test beam data, and simulation studies of possible physics goals at LHC energies. Using the MAXWELL and GARFIELD simulation packages we have obtained the optimum field configurations for our detector for various sizes and designs. The test beam results are being analysed to finalise the design so that we get balance between good efficiency, a design suitable for large scale production. We are also doing simulation studies of the various physics phenomena that can be studied using this detector. Currently the technical design report for our detector is being prepared.