Related papers: Thermalization at RHIC
We describe some of the recent progress in the calculation of thermodynamic quantities in QCD at high temperatures and densities by weak-coupling techniques and extrapolation to realistic coupling strength. We argue that a (mostly) weakly…
We propose a new thermalization scenario for heavy ion collisions which at sufficiently high energies implies the phase transition to the quark--gluon plasma. The key ingredient of our approach is the Hawking--Unruh effect: an observer…
Although at temperatures $T\gg \Lambda_{QCD}$ the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is a gas of weakly interacting quasiparticles (modulo long-range magnetism), it is strongly interacting (sQGP) in the temperature range $(1-3) T_c$. One aspect of…
We review the physics of nuclear matter at high energy density and the experimental search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The data obtained in the first three years of the RHIC physics program…
Lattice-QCD simulations and theoretical arguments hint at the existence of an intermediate phase of strongly interacting matter between a confined hadron gas and a deconfined Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). We qualitatively and…
The purpose of these lectures is to provide an introduction to the physics issues which are being studied in the RHIC heavy ion program. These center around the production of new states of matter. The Quark Gluon Plasma is thermal matter…
Transition from the quark-gluon (QG) plasma to a hadronic gas is studied in the framework of the relativistic combustion theory. The calculations reveal that the QG phase must be in a strongly supercooled state. The stability of this…
We show that the transverse-momentum spectra of all hadrons measured at RHIC, including hyperons, are described very well in a thermal model assuming the simultaneous chemical and thermal freeze-outs. The model calculation takes into…
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…
Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) are thought to have produced a state of matter called the Quark-Gluon-Plasma, characterized by a very small shear viscosity to entropy density ratio…
The quark gluon plasma which has been observed at RHIC is a strongly interacting system and has been called sQGP. This is a system at high temperatures and almost zero baryon chemical potential. A similar system with high chemical potential…
We reexamine the scenario of homogeneous nucleation of the quark-gluon plasma produced in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. A generalization of the standard nucleation theory to rapidly expanding system is proposed. The nucleation…
Lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD), defined on a discrete space time lattice, leads to a spectacular non-perturbative prediction of a new state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma (QGP), at sufficiently high temperatures or equivalently…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies a new kind of matter is created, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The phase diagram of such matter and the chemical freeze-out points will be presented in connection to the pseudo-critical…
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…
Recent studies show that for central collisions the rising of the incident energy from AGS to RHIC decreases the value of the chemical potential in the Hadron-QGP phase diagram. Thus, the formation of QGP at RHIC energies in central…
Over the last decade it has been established that a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is formed in ultrarelativistic A+A collisions at RHIC energies. In recent years, detector upgrades have enabled the detailed study of this hot and dense matter.…
In ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions heavy quarks are produced out of thermal equilibrium in the very early stage of the reaction and their thermalization time was expected to be considerably larger than that of light quarks. On the…
It is suggested that the hadronization of the quark-gluon plasma is a first-order phase transition described by a critical curve in the temperature-(quark) density plane which terminates in a critical point. Such a critical curve is derived…
Heavy ion collisions at the LHC facility generate a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) which, for central collisions, has a higher energy density and temperature than the plasma generated in central collisions at the RHIC. But sufficiently peripheral…