Meson Spectroscopy & Other QCD Studies with Coherent Heavy Ions

			Spencer Klein	
	     Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Peripheral heavy ion collisions, in which the ions miss each other but
interact via long range photons fields, can be a fertile ground for
studying meson spectroscopy and other QCD topics.  The intense
electromagnetic fields produce a variety of charged mesonic states via
two photon collisions.  Photon-Pomeron collisions also occur; in them
photons interact with the nuclear absorptive potential, producing
vector mesons.

After discussing the physics, I will present the experimental program
planned for the STAR detector at RHIC.  I will discuss the expected
backgrounds, along with triggering and some sample data analyses.