Study of Initial and Final State Effects in Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ion Collisions Using Hadronic Probes

This doctoral dissertation reports  the properties of the final state of produced matter in Au+Au collisions at √sNN = 200GeV, using measurements made of  the transverse momentum spectra of deuterons and anti-deuterons in the range 1.1< pT<4.3 GeV/c at mid-rapidity. It was found to be less steeply falling than the proton (and antiproton) spectra. We also probed the initial conditions by looking at the nuclear modification factor Rcp from particle production in forward and backward directions using d+Au collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV. This allowed us to distinguish between effects that could potentially be due to deconfinement, versus effects of cold nuclear matter.