Related papers: Quarks in the universe
With high energy heavy ion collisions one tries to create a new forms of matter that is similar to the one present at the birth of our Universe. Recent development on flow pattern, initial energy-density and freeze-out temperature shows…
High-energy heavy-ion collisions provide a unique opportunity to study the properties of the hot and dense strongly-interacting system composed of deconfined quarks and gluons -- the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) -- in laboratory conditions. The…
The evolution of the Universe is the ultimate laboratory to study fundamental physics across energy scales that span about 25 orders of magnitude: from the grand unification scale through particle and nuclear physics scales down to the…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies matter is formed with initial energy density significantly exceeding the critical energy density for the transition from hadronic to partonic matter. We will review the…
Collisions between heavy atomic nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies are carried out at particle colliders to produce the quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter where quarks and gluons are not confined into hadrons, and colour degrees of…
Quantum chromodynamics predicts that the interaction between its fundamental constituents, quarks and gluons, can lead to different states of strongly interacting matter, dependent on its temperature and baryon density. We first survey the…
An elementary introduction to the physics of quark-gluon plasma is given. We start with a sketchy presentation of the Quantum Chromodynamics which is the fundamental theory of strong interactions. The structure of hadrons built up of quarks…
These lectures provide a modern introduction to selected topics in the physics of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions which shed light on the fundamental theory of strong interactions, the Quantum Chromodynamics. The emphasis is on the…
Heavy ion collisions quickly form a droplet of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) with a remarkably small viscosity. We give an accessible introduction to how to study this smallest and hottest droplet of liquid made on earth and why it is so…
Ultrarelativistic collisions between heavy nuclei briefly generate the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a new state of matter characterized by deconfined partons last seen microseconds after the Big Bang. The properties of the QGP are of intense…
The discovery and characterization of hot and dense QCD matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), remains the most international collaborative effort and synergy between theorists and experimentalists in modern nuclear physics to date. The…
Once upon a time, the world was simple: the proton contained three quarks, two {\it ups} and a {\it down}. How these give the proton its mass and its spin seemed obvious. Over the past forty years the proton has become more complicated, and…
The gravitational waves emitted from a binary neutron star merger, as predicted from general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics calculations, are sensitive to the appearance of quark matter and the stiffness of the equation of state of QCD…
Ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at the laboratory provide a unique chance to study quantum chromodynamics (QCD) under extreme temperature (${\approx}150\,\mathrm{MeV}$) and density (${\approx}1\,\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3$)…
Ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions recreate in the laboratory the thermodynamical conditions prevailing in the early universe up to 10$^{-6}$ seconds, thereby allowing the study of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of quantum…
We review the physics of nuclear matter at high energy density and the experimental search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The data obtained in the first three years of the RHIC physics program…
The observational evidence points to the origin of our Universe from a big-bang explosion, the normal matter we observed can be well explained by the particles created in the strong and weak interacting phases of the early universe. The…
This chapter, to appear in the section on QCD under extreme conditions within the Encyclopedia of Nuclear Physics, aims to provide a pedagogical introduction to the physics of quarks and gluons in the presence of high temperature, nonzero…
Heavy quarks, which are produced at the earliest stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, probe the entire history of the quark-gluon plasma that is created in the collision. Initially the plasma is populated with chromodynamic fields…
Some recent developments concerning the role of strange quark matter for astrophysical systems and the QCD phase transition in the early universe are addressed. Causality constraints of the soft nuclear equation of state as extracted from…