Related papers: Coherent photon-photon interactions in very periph…
The hot and dense matter generated in heavy-ion collisions may contain domains which are not invariant under P and CP transformations. Moreover, heavy-ion collisions can generate extremely strong magnetic fields as well as electric fields.…
Ultra-peripheral collisions are the energy frontier for photon-mediated interactions, reaching, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), $\gamma-p$ center of mass energies five to ten times higher than at HERA and reaching $\gamma\gamma$…
The exploration of the strong-interaction matter under extreme conditions is one of the main goals of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We provide some of the main results on the novel properties of quark-gluon plasma, with particular…
We discuss the physics of large impact parameter interactions at the LHC: ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs). The dominant processes in UPCs are photon-nucleon (nucleus) interactions. The current LHC detector configurations can explore small…
I outline experimental results on heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider for a non-technical audience. This includes: elliptic flow and nearly ideal hydrodynamics; the suppression of hard particles and the ratio R_AA;…
This paper investigates the electromagnetic production of lepton pairs with low transverse momentum in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We estimate the initial photons' transverse momentum contributions by employing models where the…
Some recent experimental results obtained in collisions of heavy nuclei ($\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV) at BNL Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) are discussed. The probes of dense matter created in heavy-ion collision by quarkonia, $D$ and $B$…
In these two lectures I review the basics of heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies and the physics we can do with them. I aim to cover the basics on the kinematics and observables in heavy-ion collider experiments, the basics on the…
Towards the end of 2010, some 25 years after the very first collisions of ultra-relativistic heavy ions at fixed target energies, and some 10 years after the start of operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), the LHC opened a…
Heavy quarks are copiously produced in ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions. In the strong electromagnetic fields, c c-bar and b b-bar are produced by photonuclear and two-photon interactions; hadroproduction can occur in grazing…
We discuss the production of hadronic resonances in very peripheral heavy ion collisions, where the ions collide with impact parameter larger than twice the nuclear radius and remain intact after the collision. We compare the resonance…
The first collisions of lead nuclei, delivered by the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the end of 2010, at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV, marked the beginning of a new era in ultra-relativistic…
Some topics on heavy-ion collisions are reviewed with emphasis on those which are expected to be specially relevant at the Large Hadron Collider programme.
Direct real photons are arguably the most versatile tools to study relativistic heavy ion collisions. They are produced, by various mechanisms, during the entire space-time history of the strongly interacting system. Also, being colorless,…
Strange hadrons, especially multi-strange hadrons are good probes for the early partonic stage of heavy ion collisions due to their small hadronic cross sections. In this paper, I give a brief review on the elliptic flow measurements of…
Peripheral collisions of heavy ions can give rise to extremely intense magnetic fields. It has been suggested that these fields might invalidate the holographic description of the corresponding quark-gluon plasmas, assuming that these can…
The production of electron-positron pairs with the capture of the electron in an atomic orbital is investigated for the conditions of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider LHC). Dirac wave functions for…
A selection of experimental results in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions after five years of operation of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) is presented. Emphasis is put on measurements that provide direct information on…
Heavy-ion collisions provide the only laboratory tests of relativistic quantum field theory at finite temperature. Understanding these is a necessary step in understanding the origins of our universe. These lectures introduce the subject to…
We present a study of two-particle correlation functions involving photons and neutral pions in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at the LHC energy. The aim is to use these correlation functions to quantify the effects of the medium on…