Related papers: Review on Heavy-Ion Physics
The ALICE detector recorded Pb-Pb collisions at sqrtsNN = 2.76 TeV at the LHC in November-December 2010. We present the results of the measurements that provide a first characterization of the hot and dense state of strongly-interacting…
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 show that the phenomenology of isospin effects on heavy ion reactions at intermediate energies (few AGeV range) is extremely rich and can allow a ``direct'' study of the covariant structure of the isovector interaction in the hadron…
A brief overview of direct-photon measurements in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is given. The results for Pb+Pb collisions at sqrt{s_NN} = 17.3 GeV and for Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_NN} = 200 GeV are compared to estimates…
Strongly interacting matter as described by the thermodynamics of QCD undergoes a phase transition, from a low temperature hadronic medium to a high temperature quark-gluon plasma state. In the early universe this transition occurred during…
QCD predicts a phase transition between hadronic matter and a Quark Gluon Plasma at high energy density. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is a new facility dedicated to the experimental study of…
After decades of painstaking research, the field of heavy ion physics has reached an exciting new era. Evidence is mounting that we can create a high temperature, high density, strongly interacting ``bulk matter'' state in the laboratory --…
In ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions the produced high temperature, high energy density state will cross different phases of the strongly interacting matter. The original idea of quark-gluon plasma formation has been evolved and the…
An introductory overview of electromagnetic probes in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions is provided. Experimental evidence supporting the production of thermal photons and dileptons in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy…
Moving highly-charged ions carry strong electromagnetic fields that act as a field of photons. In collisions at large impact parameters, hadronic interactions are not possible, and the ions interact through photon-ion and photon-photon…
This article gives an overview of recent highlights from experimental measurements of heavy-ion collisions at ultra-relativistic energies: Measurements of electroweak probes constrain both the initial collision geometry and the nuclear…
High energy collisions of heavy atomic nuclei allow to create and carefully study a high-density, colour-deconfined state of strongly-interacting matter. According to calculations from lattice Quantum-Chromodynamics, under the conditions of…
This is a proceeding of the CERN Latin American School of High-Energy physics that took place in the beautiful city of Natal, northern Brazil, in March 2011. In this paper I present a review of the main topics associated with the study of…
An outlook on physics at the high energy frontier of nucleus-nucleus collisions is presented, on the basis of the new results presented at Quark Matter 2011 by the LHC and RHIC experiments.
Heavy ions at high velocities provide very strong electromagnetic fields for a very short time. The main characteristics of ultraperipheral relativistic heavy ion collisions are reviewed, characteristic parameters are identified. The main…
The major aim of nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC is to study the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark gluon plasma (QGP), formed in extreme conditions of temperature and energy density. We give a brief overview of the…
I review the main predictions for the heavy-ion programme at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, as available in early April 2009. I begin by remembering the standard claims made in view of the experimental data measured at the Super…
The strong electromagnetic fields associated with ultra-relativistic protons and nuclei correspond to an equivalent flux of photons. At the future Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the corresponding photon-nucleon center of mass energies will…
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.
This article summarizes our present knowledge about nuclear matter at the highest energy densities and its formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We review what is known about the structure and properties of the quark-gluon plasma…