Related papers: Thermodynamics of hot strong-interaction matter fr…
We present a unified description of the high temperature phase of QCD, the so-called quark-gluon plasma, in a regime where the effective gauge coupling $g$ is sufficiently small to allow for weak coupling calculations. The main focuss is…
The strongly-coupled phase of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is studied here by resorting to a $T$-matrix formulation in which the medium is seen as a non-ideal gas of quasiparticles (quarks, antiquarks and gluons) interacting…
Kinetic equations are used to study thermalization of the anisotropic quark-gluon plasma produced by decays of color flux tubes possibly created at the very early stages of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The decay rates of the initial…
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…
The early stage of high multiplicity nuclear collisions is represented by a nearly quarkless, hot, deconfined pure gluon plasma. This new scenario should be characterized by a suppression of high $p_T$ photons and dileptons as well as by…
Heavy-ion colliders have revealed the process of "fast thermalization". This experimental breakthrough has led to new theoretical tools to study the thermalization process at both weak and strong coupling. We apply this to the reheating…
The quantum statistical interference between identical particles emitted from a completely chaotic source is expected to provide valuable input for the space time description of the system. Intensity interferometry of thermal photons…
The quark-gluon plasma, which is produced at an early stage of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, is expected to be initially strongly populated with chromodynamic fields. We address the question how heavy quarks interact with such a…
Electromagnetic probes are not affected by hadronization and provide direct information about the space-time evolution of high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. In particular, the measurement of thermal radiation from the quark-gluon…
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…
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…
If a quark-gluon plasma is formed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, there may or may not be a mixed phase of quarks, gluons and hadronic clusters when the critical temperature is reached in the expansion of the fireball. If there is a…
I discuss the phase structure of strongly interacting matter at high temperatures and densities, as predicted by statistical QCD, and consider in particular the nature of the transition of hot hadronic matter to a plasma of deconfined…
A general scheme is proposed here to describe the production of semi soft and soft quarks and gluons that form the bulk of the plasma in ultra relativistic heavy ion collisions. We show how to obtain rates as a function of time in a self…
Bottomonium states are key probes for experimental studies of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in high-energy nuclear collisions. Theoretical models of bottomonium productions in high-energy nuclear collisions rely on the in-medium…
This lecture concerns the properties of strongly interacting matter (which is described by Quantum Chromodynamics) at very high energy density. I review the properties of matter at high temperature, discussing the deconfinement phase…
The relativistic Fokker Planck equation has been used to study the evolution of the quark distribution in the quark gluon phase expected to be formed in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. The effect of thermal masses for quarks and…
We investigate how the possible existence of hadronic bound states above the deconfinement transition temperature $T_c$ affects heavy-quark observables like the nuclear modification factor, the elliptic flow and azimuthal correlations.…
A fundamental question of physics is what ultimately happens to matter as it is heated or compressed. In the realm of very high temperature and density the fundamental degrees of freedom of the strong interaction, quarks and gluons, come…
We study particle production and its density evolution and equilibration in hot dense medium. One type of hot dense medium, which we study, is hadronic gas produced at quark gluon plasma hadronization in heavy ions collisions in SPS, RHIC…