Related papers: Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions and the QC…
We present an overview of selected aspects of ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions, a research program devoted to the study of strongly interacting matter at high energy densities and in particular to the characterization of the…
We first introduce the conceptual basis of critical behaviour in strongly interacting matter, with colour deconfinement as QCD analog of the insulator-conductor transition and chiral symmetry restoration as special case of the associated…
The general formalism of homogeneous nucleation theory is applied to study the hadronization pattern of the ultra-relativistic quark-gluon plasma (QGP) undergoing a first order phase transition. A coalescence model is proposed to describe…
A basic understanding of the relevant features of hadron properties from first principles QCD has remained elusive, and should be understood as emergent phenomena which depend critically on the number of dimensions of physical spacetime.…
Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a QCD state of matter created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, has remarkable properties, including, for example, a low shear viscosity over entropy ratio. By detecting the collection of low-momentum…
We argue that features of hadron production in relativistic nuclear collisions, mainly at CERN-SPS energies, may be explained by the existence of three forms of matter: Hadronic Matter, Quarkyonic Matter, and a Quark-Gluon Plasma. We…
Lattice studies suggest that at zero baryon chemical potential and increasing temperature there are three characteristic regimes in QCD that are connected by smooth analytical crossovers: a hadron gas regime at T < T_ch ~ 155 MeV, an…
This is an introduction to the study of strongly interacting matter. We survey its different possible states and discuss the transition from hadronic matter to a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons. Following this, we summarize the…
A QCD phase transition in the early universe could have left inhomogeneities in the baryon to photon ratio and in isospin that might have affected nucleosynthesis later on. At very high temperature QCD plasma can be described by…
The quark-hadron transition that happens in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions is expected to be influenced by the effects of rotation and magnetic field, both present due to the geometry of a generic non-head-on impact. We augment the…
Lattice-QCD simulations and theoretical arguments hint at the existence of an intermediate phase of strongly interacting matter between a confined hadron gas and a deconfined Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). We qualitatively and…
QCD, the theory of the strong interactions, involves quarks interacting with non-Abelian gluon fields. This theory has many features that are difficult to impossible to see in conventional diagrammatic perturbation theory. This includes…
We are discussing the properties of the QCD vacuum which might be important especially for the understanding of hadrons with small quark core size $\sim0.3\,fm.$ We assume that at these distances the QCD vacuum can be described by the…
At high temperatures, strongly interacting matter becomes a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons. In statistical QCD, deconfinement and the properties of the resulting quark-gluon plasma can be investigated by studying the in-medium…
Recent observations of neutron stars, combined with causality, thermodynamic stability, and nuclear constraints, indicate a rapid stiffening of QCD matter at densities slightly above nuclear saturation density ($n_0 \simeq 0.16\,{\rm…
Several topics in hadron physics at different scales of resolution are discussed. First, deep-inelastic scattering from nucleons and nuclei is viewed in a light-cone coordinate space picture. Then the smooth transition from parton to hadron…
We review theoretical approaches to explore the phase diagram of nuclear and quark matter at high baryon density. We first look over the basic properties of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and address how to describe various states of QCD…
It has been theorized that if heavy nuclei (e.g. Au, Pb) are collided at sufficiently high energies, we might be to recreate the conditions that existed in the universe a few microseconds after the Big Bang. The kinetic energy of the…
We consider the possibility that color deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration do not coincide in dense baryonic matter at low temperature. As a consequence, a state of massive "constituent" quarks would exist as an intermediate phase…
In order to study the nuclear matter in the relativistic heavy ion collisions and the compact stars, we need the hadronic density of states for the entire ($\mu_B-T$) phase transition diagram. We present a model for the continuous…