Related papers: Explosive Collisions at RHIC?
The search for the critical point of QCD in heavy-ion collision experiments has sparked enormous interest with the completion of phase I of the RHIC beam energy scan. Here, I review the basics of the thermodynamics of the QCD phase…
The thermodynamics of QCD with sufficiently heavy dynamical quarks can be described by a three-dimensional Polyakov loop effective theory, obtained after a truncated character and hopping expansion. We investigate the resulting phase…
We present results for the chiral and deconfinement transition of two flavor QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential. To this end we study the quark condensate and its dual, the dressed Polyakov loop, with functional methods using…
The dual observables as order parameters for center symmetry are tested at finite isospin chemical potential $\mu_I$ in a Polyakov-loop enhanced chiral model of QCD with physical quark masses. As a counterpart of the dressed Polyakov-loop,…
We review our present knowledge of the Polyakov loop, the correlator of Polyakov loops and the singlet correlator in thermal QCD from the point of view of perturbation theory and lattice QCD.
Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions are considered ideal environments for exploring the QCD phase diagram and probing the properties of the QGP as functions of temperature and baryon chemical potential. At the highest energies, such as…
Measurements of disoriented chiral condensates in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC can yield fundamental information on the nature of the QCD phase transition. I review theoretical efforts to understand the evolution of the…
In studies of the QCD deconfining phase transition or crossover by means of heavy ion experiments, one ought to be concerned about non-equilibrium effects due to heating and cooling of the system. Motivated by this, we look at hysteresis…
Numerical studies of the QCD phase diagram at finite baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$ on the lattice are impeded by a sign problem. Effective Polyakov loop theories derived from lattice QCD via combined strong-coupling and hopping…
A three-dimensional effective lattice theory of Polyakov loops is derived from QCD by expansions in the fundamental character of the gauge action, u, and the hopping parameter, \kappa, whose action is correct to \kappa^n u^m with n+m=4. At…
Fast thermalization and a strong buildup of elliptic flow of QCD matter as found at RHIC are understood as the consequence of perturbative QCD (pQCD) interactions within the 3+1 dimensional parton cascade BAMPS. The main contributions stem…
A first attempt to accommodate the chiral and deconfining phase transitions of QCD in the bottom-up holographic framework is given. We constrain the relation between dilaton field $\phi$ and metric warp factor $A_e$ and get several…
QCD predicts the existence of a new partonic Yukawa phase above a critical temperature $T_c\sim 150$ MeV. I review some of the key observables which will be used in heavy ion reactions to search for this new phase at RHIC. Systematics of…
There are indications of formation of a thermalized medium in high multiplicity pp collisions at LHC energy. It is possible that such a medium may reach high enough energy density/temperature so that a transient stage of quark-gluon plasma,…
We investigate the effective potential of the Polyakov loop, which is the order parameter for the deconfinement phase transition in finite temperature QCD. Our work is based on the Hamiltonian approach in Coulomb gauge where finite…
High-energy collisions of heavy ions provide a means to study QCD in a regime of high parton density, and may provide insight into its phase structure. Results from the four experiments at RHIC (BRAHMS, PHENIX, PHOBOS and STAR) are…
It is thought that a region of pseudo-vacuum, where the chiral order parameter is misaligned from its vacuum orientation in isospin space, might occasionally form in high energy hadronic or nuclear collisions. The possible detection of such…
We argue that by measuring higher moments of the net proton number fluctuations in heavy ion collisions (HIC) one can probe the QCD chiral cross over transition experimentally. We discuss the properties of fluctuations of the net baryon…
Employing the perturbative QCD inspired parton cascade, we investigate kinetic and chemical equilibration of the partonic matter created in central heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. Two types of initial conditions are chosen.…
Dual meson condensates as possible order parameters for deconfinement are investigated in a Polyakov-loop enhanced linear sigma model of QCD at both zero and finite isospin chemical potential $\mu_I$. We find that the rapid rise of the dual…