Related papers: Light-Ion Collisions: Bridging Small and Large QCD…
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…
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…
With the advent of unprecedented collision energy at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Geneva, a new domain of particle production and possible formation of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) in high-multiplicity proton-proton collisions and the…
In this work we review what we consider are, some of the most relevant results of heavy-ion physics at the LHC. This paper is not intended to cover all the many important results of the experiments, instead we present a brief overview of…
In July 2025 the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collided $^{16}$O$^{16}$O and $^{20}$Ne$^{20}$Ne isotopes in a quest to understand the physics of ultrarelativistic light ion collisions. One of the key motivations for this run is to discover…
Heavy ion collisions quickly form a droplet of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) with a remarkably small viscosity. We give an accessible introduction to how to study this smallest and hottest droplet of liquid made on earth and why it is so…
Many features of heavy-ion collisions are well described by hybrid approaches, where the droplet of strongly coupled quark gluon plasma (QGP) is modeled by hydrodynamics and the subsequent dilute stage is performed with a hadronic transport…
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…
This article presents recent measurements by the ALICE Collaboration in proton--oxygen (pO), oxygen--oxygen (OO), and neon--neon (Ne--Ne) collisions delivered by the LHC in July 2025. Measurements of the primary charged-particle…
The heavy ion (HI) program at the LHC has proven to be a successful and indispensable part of the LHC physics program. Its chief aim had been the detailed characterization of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in lead-lead collisions. Using…
Early November 2010, the LHC collided for the first time heavy ions, Pb on Pb, at a centre-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV/nucleon. This date marked both the end of almost 20 years of preparing for nuclear collisions at the LHC, as well as the…
The first heavy-ion run at the LHC with Pb+Pb collisions at roots_NN = 2.76 TeV took place in the fall of 2010. In a short and relatively low luminosity run, the three detectors, ALICE, ATLAS and CMS showcased an impressive performance and…
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 first Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC are little more than a year away. This paper discusses some of the exciting measurements which the experiments will be able to perform in the very first run, even with modest luminosity, and gives a…
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 will enter a new era with the start of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A first short run with proton-proton collisions at the injection energy of 0.9 TeV will be followed by a longer one with $pp$ collisions at 10…
In these proceedings, I report on a selection of recent LHC results in small systems from ALICE, ATLAS and CMS experiments. Due to the fact that the investigation of QCD in small systems at high multiplicity is becoming an increasingly…
A strongly interacting Quark-Gluon Plasma (sQGP) is created in the high energy heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. Our present understanding of sQGP as a very good liquid with astonishingly low viscosity is reviewed. With the arrival of…
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…
The observation of long-range collective correlations for particles emitted in high-multiplicity pp and pPb collisions has opened up new opportunities of investigating novel high-density QCD phenomena in small colliding systems. We review…