Related papers: The Phase Diagram of QCD
Matter described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions, may undergo phase transitions when its temperature and the chemical potentials are varied. QCD at finite temperature is studied in the laboratory by…
Strongly interacting matter exhibits new phases under extreme conditions. Matter was exposed to such extremes not only in the Early Universe, but also today in the cores of neutron stars, as well as in laboratory experiments at a much…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies matter is formed with initial energy density significantly exceeding the critical energy density for the transition from hadronic to partonic matter. We will review the…
Strongly interacting matter as described by the thermodynamics of QCD undergoes a phase transition, from a low temperature hadronic medium to a high temperature quark-gluon plasma state. In the early universe this transition occurred during…
Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase diagram is usually plotted as temperature (T) versus the chemical potential associated with the conserved baryon number (\mu_{B}). Two fundamental properties of QCD, related to confinement and chiral…
Quantum chromodynamics predicts that the interaction between its fundamental constituents, quarks and gluons, can lead to different states of strongly interacting matter, dependent on its temperature and baryon density. We first survey the…
The strong interaction - governed by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) - shapes the structure of the visible universe. At about 10 $\mu$s after the big bang, the primordial matter made up of quarks and gluons plus leptons, photons and neutrinos,…
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…
At high temperatures or densities matter formed by strongly interacting elementary particles (hadronic matter) is expected to undergo a transition to a new form of matter - the quark gluon plasma - in which elementary particles (quarks and…
Our current knowledge of the quark-gluon plasma in thermodynamical equilibrium is reviewed. The phase diagram of strongly interacting matter is discussed, with emphasis on the quark-hadron phase transition and the color-superconducting…
This is an introduction to the study of strongly interacting matter. We survey its different possible states and discuss the transition from hadronic matter to a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons. Following this, we summarize the…
The past fifty years have seen the emergence of a new field of research in physics, the study of matter at extreme temperatures and densities. The theory of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), predicts that in this limit,…
In the standard model of particle physics, the strong force is characterized by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). It is commonly understood from QCD properties that hadrons, at sufficiently high temperatures or densities, melt…
One of the main activities in high-energy and nuclear physics is the search for the so-called quark-gluon plasma, a new state of matter which should have existed a few microseconds after the Big Bang. A quark-gluon plasma consists of free…
QCD predicts that strongly interacting matter will undergo a transition from a state of hadronic constituents to a plasma of unbound quarks and gluons. We first survey the conceptual features of this transition and its description in finite…
In these lectures we provide an introduction to the phase structure of QCD. We begin with a brief discussion of QCD, the symmetries of QCD, and what we mean by a ``phase of QCD''. In the main part of the lectures we discuss the phase…
This chapter, to appear in the section on QCD under extreme conditions within the Encyclopedia of Nuclear Physics, aims to provide a pedagogical introduction to the physics of quarks and gluons in the presence of high temperature, nonzero…
At high temperatures and densities the nuclear matter undergoes a phase transition to a new state of matter called quark gluon plasma (QGP). This new state of matter which existed in the universe after a few microsecond of the big bang can…
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…
I make a brief review about the QCD phases and the equation of state inferred from the neutron star data. Along the temperature axis at low baryon density, the QCD phase transition is a smooth crossover, and it is a natural extension of our…