Hadron thermodynamics on the connection machine

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) predicts that at very high temperature there is a phase transition or cross over from the low-temperature state of ordinary matter to a high-temperature state consisting of a plasma of quarks and gluons. The nature of this transition and the properties of the high-temperature phase are im portant for an understanding of cosmology, heavy ion collisions, and the structure of QCD itself. The study of high-temperature QCD is one of the major goals of lattice gauge theory. Such studies involve large-scale computer simulations. We briefly review the status of this subject and present preliminary results from a large-scale study in progress on the Pittsburgh Super computer Center's Connection Machine (CM-2).