Related papers: The Phase Diagram of Strongly-Interacting Matter
We suggest that the ultrarelativistic collisions of heavy ions provide the simplest situation for the study of strong interactions which can be understood from first principles and without any model assumptions about the microscopic…
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…
I give a brief overview of our current understanding of the QCD phase diagram at finite temperature and baryon density. I emphasize phase transitions which occur at high density and low temperature (relative to the QCD scale), such as…
QCD predicts that strongly interacting matter will undergo a transition from a state of hadronic constituents to a plasma of unbound quarks and gluons. We first survey the conceptual features of this transition and its description in finite…
Elementary particles such as quarks and gluons are expected to be fundamental degrees of freedom at ultra high temperatures or densities, while natural phenomena in our daily lives are described in terms of hadronic degrees of freedom.…
The QCD phase transition has important consequences in the context of both the early universe as well as compact stars. Such transitions are being studied for high temperature and small chemical potential scenario in the laboratory. There…
The hadron-quark phase transition in the core of massive neutron stars is studied with a newly constructed two-phase model. For nuclear matter, a nonlinear Walecka type model with general nucleon-meson and meson-meson couplings, recently…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies a new kind of matter is created, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The phase diagram of such matter and the chemical freeze-out points will be presented in connection to the pseudo-critical…
We present an analytical description of the phase transitions from a nucleon gas to nuclear matter and from nuclear matter to quark matter within the same model. The equation of state for quark and nuclear matter is encoded in the effective…
In nuclear collisions at relativistic energies, matter is created which resembles closely the matter that filled all space until about 15 microseconds after the big bang. Here we summarize selected aspects of the research that led to the…
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…
In cores of supernovae and crusts of neutron stars, nuclei can adopt interesting shapes, such as rods or slabs, etc., which are referred to as nuclear "pasta." Recently, we have been studying the pasta phases focusing on their dynamical…
The properties of dense hadronic and quark matter and its relation to compact stars are discussed. In a bottom-up approach one starts with nuclear and hypernuclear physics at low density and extrapolates hadronic matter to large densities.…
In this contribution I summarize and discuss the results of the bulk thermodynamic characteristics, meson and nucleon structure in hot matter obtained in the framework of a chiral quark-meson theory. A hybrid NJL model is used in which a…
The phase diagram of a system constituted of neutrons, protons, $\Lambda$-hyperons and electrons is evaluated in the mean-field approximation in the complete three-dimensional space given by the baryon, lepton and strange charge. It is…
In this talk, I discuss some recent results obtained in Heavy Ion Collisions and what they tell us -- or what questions they raise -- about the physics of the system of quarks and gluons formed in these collisions.
Neutron matter is an intriguing nuclear system with multiple connections to other areas of physics. Considerable progress has been made over the last two decades in exploring the properties of pure neutron fluids. Here we begin by reviewing…
The equation of state for quark matter is derived for a nonlocal, chiral quark model within the mean field approximation. We investigate the effects of a variation of the form factors of the interaction on the phase diagram of quark matter…
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 phase transition from hadronic matter to quark matter at high density might be a strong first order phase transition in presence of a large surface tension between the two phases. While this implies a constant-pressure mixed phase for…