Related papers: The Horn, Kink and Step, Dale: from few GeV to few…
Statistical calculations within the Standard Model indicate that at extremely high densities the quarks and gluons will become deconfined, leading to a new state of matter, the so-called Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Recently it was announced…
Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions, predicts a transition of the usual matter to a new phase of matter, called Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), at sufficiently high temperatures. The non-perturbative technique of…
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…
Lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD), defined on a discrete space time lattice, leads to a spectacular non-perturbative prediction of a new state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma (QGP), at sufficiently high temperatures or equivalently…
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…
Deconfinement refers to the creation of a state of quasi-free quarks and gluons in strongly interacting matter. Model predictions and experimental evidence for the onset of deconfinement in nucleus-nucleus collisions were discussed in our…
We report on recent research on the properties of elementary particle matter governed by the strong force at high temperatures, where QCD predicts hadrons to dissolve into the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). After a short introduction to the…
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 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 state of art in studying thermodynamic properties of hot and dense nuclear matter is reviewed with the special emphasis on the confinement-deconfinement transition between hadron matter and quark-gluon plasma. The most popular models…
There is little doubt that Quantumchromodynamics (QCD) is the theory which describes strong interaction physics. Lattice gauge simulations of QCD predict that in the $\mu,T$ plane there is a line where a transition from confined hadronic…
In the standard model of particle physics, the strong force is characterized by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). It is commonly understood from QCD properties that hadrons, at sufficiently high temperatures or densities, melt…
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…
Heavy-ion collisions at very high colliding energies are expected to produce a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at the highest temperature obtainable in a laboratory setting. Experimental studies of these reactions can provide an unprecedented…
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 (${\approx}1\,\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3$)…
The NA49 fixed-target experiment studied high energy-density matter produced in nucleus-nucleus reactions at the CERN SPS. In central Pb+Pb collisions at 158A GeV the energy density at the early stage substantially exceeds the threshold for…
The exploration of the QCD phase diagram particularly the search for a phase transition from hadronic to partonic degrees of freedom and possibly a critical endpoint, is one of the most challenging tasks in present heavy-ion physics. 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…
It is believed that a novel state of matter - Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) will be transiently produced if normal hadronic matter is subjected to sufficiently high temperature and/or density. We have investigated the possibility of QGP…
Droplets of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), an exotic state of strongly interacting quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter, are routinely produced in heavy nuclei high-energy collisions. Although the experimental signatures marked a paradigm shift…