A New Approach to Nuclear Collisions at RHIC Energies

We present a new parton model approach for nuclear collisions at RHIC energies (and beyond). It is a selfconsistent treatment, using the same formalism for calculating cross sections like the total and the inelastic one and, on the other hand, particle production. Actually, the latter one is based on an expression for the total cross section, expanded in terms of cut Feynman diagrams. Dominant diagrams are assumed to be composed of parton ladders between any pair of nucleons, with ordered virtualities from both ends of the ladder.