Related papers: Theoretical Overview Quark Matter '04
The enhancement of pions and kaons observed at small transverse momenta in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions may at least partly reflect critical scattering expected to occur in the neighborhood of a second order phase transition.…
Transverse momentum spectra of pions, protons and antiprotons in Au+Au collisions at intermediate RHIC energy of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=62$ GeV are studied in a model that includes both quark coalescence from the dense partonic matter and…
The current state of research on high-energy heavy ion physics, including its motivations and purpose is reviewed from a theorist's perspective. Possible future directions are discussed, in particular the possibility of investigating the…
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…
The problem of forward production of hadrons in heavy-ion collision at RHIC is revisited with modification of the theoretical treatment on the one hand and with the use of new data on the other. The basic formalism for hadronization remains…
We investigate the thermalization and the chemical equilibration of a parton plasma created from Au+Au collision at LHC and RHIC energies starting from the early moment when the particle momentum distributions in the central region become…
RHIC data opens new ways of characterizing the medium created in a heavy ion collision by measuring particles with high transverse momentum. In addition to the observation of the predicted jet quenching, the new data on particle…
In this article, there are 18 sections discussing various current topics in the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and related phenomena, which will serve as a snapshot of the current state of the art. Section 1 reviews experimental…
In high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions, a transient state of thermalized, hot and dense matter governed by Quantum Chromodynamics is produced. Properties of this state are reflected in the bulk low transverse momentum (P_T) hadron…
Hard probes are a cornerstone in the ongoing program to determine the properties of hot and dense QCD matter as created in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. LHC measurements have so far resulted in a wealth of high P_T data, opening…
We consider transverse-momentum resummation for top-quark pair production in hadron collisions. At small transverse momenta of the top-quark pair, the logarithmically-enhanced QCD contributions are resummed to all orders up to…
High energy heavy-ion collisions in laboratory produce a form of matter that can test Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions, at high temperatures. One of the exciting possibilities is the existence of…
I review the physics of the phase boundary between hadronic matter and quark matter from several different points of view. These include thermodynamics, statistical physics, and chemical kinetics. In particular, the review focuses on the…
We give a pedagogical introduction (suitable to upper level physics undergraduates) to the field of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. We pay particular attention to our understanding of the thermodynamic and hydrodynamic properties of…
Quarkonium production in high-energy hadronic collisions provides a fundamental test of QCD. Its modification in a nuclear medium is a sensitive probe of the space-time temperature profile and transport properties of the QGP, yielding…
There is little doubt that Quantumchromodynamics (QCD) is the theory which describes strong interaction physics. Lattice gauge simulations of QCD predict that in the $\mu,T$ plane there is a line where a transition from confined hadronic…
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has brought the study of spin effects in hadronic collisions to a new energy regime. In conjunction with other experiments at facilities around the world, much can be learned from the high-energy…
We study the transverse momentum distribution for a $pair$ of heavy quarks produced in hadron-hadron interactions. Predictions for the large transverse momentum region are based on exact order $\alpha_s^3$ QCD perturbation theory. For the…
We introduced recently a new theoretical scheme which accounts for hydrodynamically expanding bulk matter, jets, and the interaction between the two. Important for the particle production at intermediate values of transverse momentum (p_t)…
The phase transition calculations are utilized for an in-depth understanding of the thermodynamics of the deconfinement transition to perform the best analysis of the QCD phase diagram. The phenomenological justifications for a mathematical…