Related papers: A short introduction to heavy-ion physics
In the last 20 years, heavy-ion collisions have been a unique way to study the hadronic matter in the laboratory. Its phase diagram remains unknown, although many experimental and theoretical studies have been undertaken in the last…
I review arguments for the existence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram as a function of temperature and baryon chemical potential. I describe how heavy ion collision experiments at the SPS and RHIC can discover the tell-tale…
The field of relativistic heavy ion physics has seen significant advancement in the new millennium toward a greater understanding of QCD at high temperatures with the commissioning and operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Here…
This lecture presents an overview of the status of the investigation of the properties of the quark-gluon plasma using relativistic heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It…
The field of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is today a flourishing activity both on the experimental and on the theoretical side. Although the theoretical justifications to study these collisions was given already more than three…
Measurements of particles emitted from collisions of heavy ions at relativistic energies show evidence for temperature-fluctuations on the freeze-out surface of the expanding fireball. These can be understood as remnants of the density…
A status report on the jet quenching physics in heavy-ion collisions is given as it appears after more than 10 years of collecting and analysing data at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and ~1.5 years of physics at the Large…
This contribution presents a brief summary of the recent past efforts to experimentally explore the QCD phase diagram at high baryon chemical potentials through heavy-ion collisions. A few measurements are highlighted to present the current…
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.…
Hot QCD physics studies the nuclear strong force under extreme temperature and densities. Experimentally these conditions are achieved via high-energy collisions of heavy ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large…
The goal of heavy ion reactions at low beam energies is to explore the QCD phase diagram at high net baryon chemical potential. To relate experimental observations with a first order phase transition or a critical endpoint, dynamical…
Selected topics in the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions are reviewed f rom the 15 year research programme at the SPS at CERN and the AGS at BNL, and from the first run of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider at BNL.
This document summarises proposed searches for new physics accessible in the heavy-ion mode at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), both through hadronic and ultraperipheral $\gamma\gamma$ interactions, and that have a competitive or,…
Heavy-ion collisions involve strongly coupled dynamics of QCD in the entire history of time evolution. We review recent theoretical efforts to meet this challenge, focusing on the two approaches that the speaker has contributed to: 1)…
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…
In this work we present a summary of the most relevant results on heavy-ion and astroparticle physics in ALICE. The summary includes a brief overview of the current status on the characterization of the hot and dense QCD medium created in…
For tomographic studies of relativistic nuclear collisions and of the quark-gluon plasma, photons (real and virtual) are unique. They are the only probes than can be both soft and penetrating. First we report on advances in modelling the…
We give a brief review of modern theoretical understanding of the physics of QCD at finite temperature and density. We concentrate in particular on the properties of hadron gas at relatively small temperatures and discuss in details the…
Peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions uniquely probe many aspects of QED. Examples include $e^+e^-$ pair production and nuclear excitation in strong fields. After discussing these reactions, I will draw parallels between…
The two arguably most generic phenomena seen in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions are the flow of essentially all soft hadronic observables and the quenching of essentially all hard hadronic observables. Limiting the discussion to…