Related papers: Toward the Limits of Matter: Ultra-relativistic nu…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies matter is formed with initial energy density significantly exceeding the critical energy density for the transition from hadronic to partonic matter. We will review the…
At high temperatures or densities matter formed by strongly interacting elementary particles (hadronic matter) is expected to undergo a transition to a new form of matter - the quark gluon plasma - in which elementary particles (quarks and…
The past fifty years have seen the emergence of a new field of research in physics, the study of matter at extreme temperatures and densities. The theory of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), predicts that in this limit,…
Collisions between heavy atomic nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies are carried out at particle colliders to produce the quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter where quarks and gluons are not confined into hadrons, and colour degrees of…
We review the physics of nuclear matter at high energy density and the experimental search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The data obtained in the first three years of the RHIC physics program…
Heavy-ion collisions at BNL's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and CERN's Large Hadron Collider provide strong evidence for the formation of a quark-gluon plasma, with temperatures extracted from relativistic viscous hydrodynamic simulations…
I use simple thermodynamic reasoning to argue that at temperatures of order a trillion kelvin, QCD, the theory which describes strongly interacting particles such as protons and neutrons under normal conditions, undergoes a phase transition…
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 (${\approx}1\,\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{fm}^3$)…
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…
I retrace the developments from Hagedorn's concept of a limiting temperature for hadronic matter to the discovery and characterization of the quark-gluon plasma as a new state of matter. My recollections begin with the transformation more…
At high temperatures and densities the nuclear matter undergoes a phase transition to a new state of matter called quark gluon plasma (QGP). This new state of matter which existed in the universe after a few microsecond of the big bang can…
The discovery and characterization of hot and dense QCD matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), remains the most international collaborative effort and synergy between theorists and experimentalists in modern nuclear physics to date. The…
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 --…
One of the main activities in high-energy and nuclear physics is the search for the so-called quark-gluon plasma, a new state of matter which should have existed a few microseconds after the Big Bang. A quark-gluon plasma consists of free…
Matter in its present form was formed when our Universe emerged from the quark-gluon phase (QGP) at about 30mus into its evolution. To explore this early period in the laboratory, we study highly excited matter formed in relativistic heavy…
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…
The realistic equation of state of strongly interacting matter, that has been successfully applied in the recent hydrodynamic studies of hadron production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC, is used in the Friedmann equation to…
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…
Collisions of heavy nuclei at very high energies offer the exciting possibility of experimentally exploring the phase transformation from hadronic to partonic degrees of freedom which is predicted to occur at several times normal nuclear…
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…