  This work concentrates on measurement of global hadronic observables in Au+Au
interactions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 130 GeV, which
mainly address conditions in the final state of the collision. The minimum bias
multiplicity distribution, the transverse momentum (pT), and pseudorapidity
(eta) distributions for charged hadrons (h-, h+) are presented. Results on
identified pi- transverse mass (mT) and rapidity (y) distributions are also
discussed. The data were taken with the STAR detector at BNL-RHIC with emphasis
on particles near mid-rapidity. We find that the h- multiplicity at
mid-rapidity for the 5% most central interactions is dN/d eta = 280 +/- 1 +/-
20, an increase per participant of 38% relative to p-pbar collisions at similar
energy. The mean transverse momentum is 0.508 +/- 0.012 GeV/c and is larger
than in Pb+Pb collisions at lower energies. The scaling of the h- yield per
participant nucleon pair, obtained via a ratio of Au+Au to p-pbar pT
distributions, is a strong function of pT. The pseudorapidity distribution is
almost constant within |eta|<1. The pi- rapidity distribution is also flat
around mid-rapidity in the region y<0.8, with a yield of pions for central
collisions of dN/dy = 287 +/- 1 +/- 21. However, the slope of the mT
distributions is not the same for different rapidity bins, suggesting that
boost-invariance is not fully achieved in the collisions.
