ENERGY AND CHARGED-PARTICLE FLOW IN 10.8A GEV C AU+AU COLLISIONS/

Experimental results and a detailed analysis are presented of the tran sverse energy and charged particle azimuthal distributions measured by the E877 Collaboration for different centralities of Au+Au collisions at a beam momentum of 10.8A GeV/c. The anisotropy of these distributi ons is studied with respect to the reaction plane reconstructed on an event-by-event basis using the transverse energy distribution measured by calorimeters. Results are corrected for the reaction plane resolut ion. For semicentral events we observe directed flow signals of up to 10%. We observe a stronger anisotropy for slow charged particles. For both the charged particle and transverse energy distributions we obser ve a small but nonzero elliptic anisotropy with the major axis pointin g into the reaction plane. Combining the information on transverse ene rgy and charged particle flow we obtain information on the flow of nuc leons and pions. The data are compared to event generators and the nee d to introduce a mean field or nucleon-nucleon potential is discussed.