Quark Gluon Plasma Theoretical Foundations

The purpose of this volume is to trace the development of the theoretical understanding of quark-gluon plasma, both in terms of the equation of state and thermal correlation functions and in terms of its manifestation in high energy nuclear collisions. Who among us has not wondered how tall a mountain is on a neutron star, what happens when matter is heated and compressed to higher and higher densities, what happens when an object falls into a black hole, or what happened eons ago in the early universe? The study of quark-gluon plasma is related in one way or another to these and other thought provoking questions. Oftentimes the most eloquent exposition is given in the original papers. To this end a selection is made of what are the most important pioneering papers in this field. The early 1950s was an era when high energy multiparticle production in cosmic ray interactions attracted the attention of some of the brightest minds in physics, and so it should be no surprise that the first reprinted papers deal with the introduction of statistical models of particle production. The quark model arose in the 1960s, while QCD as such was recognized as the theory of the strong interactions in the 1970's. The behavior of matter at high temperatures and supranuclear densities became of wide interest in the nuclear and particle physics communities starting in the 1970s, which is when the concept of quark-gluon plasma became established. The history of the field has been traced up to the early 1990s. There are three reasons for stopping at that point in time. First, most of the key theoretical concepts and formalisms arose before 1993, although many of them continue to be developed today and hopefully well into the future. Second, papers written after 1992 are much more readily available than those writen before due to the advent of the World Wide Web and its electronic preprint databases and journals. Finally, in making this collection of reprints available as hardcopy one is limited in the number of pages, and some papers in the present selection should have been deleted in order to make room for post-1993 papers. For the same reason the subject focus must of necessity be limited, which means that in this reprint collection two wide subject areas are not addressed: the behavior of nuclear matter under extreme conditions is not reported, nor is quark matter in neutron stars. The broad categories into which the material has been placed, reflect the diverse studies of quark-gluon plasma and its manifestation. They are: phase-space models of particle production, perturbative QCD plasma, lattice gauge theory, fluid dynamics and flow, strangeness, heavy flavor (charm), electromagnetic signals, parton cascade and minijets, parton energy loss and jet quenching, Hanbury Brown--Twiss (HBT) interferometry, disoriented chiral condensates, phase transition dynamics and cosmology, and color superconductivity. Each chapter is prefaced by an introduction, which contains a list of significant papers which is more complete than the reprinted papers, though by no means exhaustive. It also contains citations to most relevant papers published up to the date of completion of this volume (fall 2002). It is hoped that the short reviews will help bring the reader up to date on the latest developments. The selection of papers cited in each chapter, and in particular the ones selected for reprinting, is solely the responsibility of the Editors. It is based on their best judgement and experience in this field dating back to the mid-1970s. In order to be reprinted a paper must have been pioneering in the sense of originality and impact on the field. Generally they have been cited over a hundred times by other papers published in refereed journals. The final selection was reviewed and discussed among the Editors repeatedly. Just because a paper is not included does not mean they do not know of it or do not have a high regard for it. All of the papers cited or reprinted are original research contributions. There are three other types of publications listed. The first is a compilation of books. The second is a list of reviews, many of which contain a significant amount of original material. The third is a list of the proceedings of the series of Quark Matter meetings, the primary series of international conferences in this field that is attended by both theorists and experimentalists.

This is a review monograph on quark–gluon plasma (QGP). Different theoretical and experimental aspects of the program to produce QGP in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are covered by experts in the field. This is the third volume in a series on the subject, and the first such monograph to focus on the implications of the experimental results from RHIC, the relativistic heavy-ion collider at the National Brookhaven Laboratory. The review articles will be useful to experienced researchers as well as to graduate students entering the field. Contents: Thermodynamics and In-Medium Hadron Properties from Lattice QCD (F Karsch & E Laermann)Thermodynamics of the High-Temperature Quark–Gluon Plasma (J-P Blaizot et al.)Jet Quenching and Radiative Energy Loss in Dense Nuclear Matter (M Gyulassy et al.)Gluon Radiation and Parton Energy Loss (A Kovner & U A Wiedemann)The Color Glass Condensate and High Energy Scattering in QCD (E Iancu & R Venugopalan)Electromagnetic Radiation from Relativistic Nuclear Collisions (C Gale & K L Haglin)Event by Event Fluctuations (S Jeon & V Koch)Particle Production in Heavy Ion Collisions (P Braun-Munzinger et al.)Hydrodynamical Description of Collective Flow (P Huovinen)Hydrodynamic Description of Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ion Collisions (P F Kolb & U Heinz)Central and Non-Central HBT from AGS to RHIC (B Tomásik & U A Wiedemann) Readership: Graduate students and researchers in high energy, nuclear and theoretical physics. Keywords:

This is a sequel to the review volume Quark-Gluon Plasma. There are 13 articles contributed by leading investigators in the field, covering a wide range of topics about the theoretical approach to the subject. These contributions are timely reviews of nearly all the actively pursued problems, written in a pedagogical style suitable for beginners as well as experienced researchers.

This third book on Quark-Gluon plasma and heavy ion collisions follows the previous ones, published in 1988 and 2005, that described theoretical proposals for a large program, and then the QGP discovery at RHIC.The present one describes the rather mature field, with extensive program at RHIC and LHC colliders and corresponding theory. QGP turns out to be a strongly coupled medium made up of quarks and gluons, existing in exploding fireballs. It is the hottest form of matter created in a laboratory. Other subjects discussed in the book are QCD vacuum structure, including topological solitons and nonperturbative phenomena. It also includes some recent progress in theory of hadrons, bridging hadronic spectroscopy with partonic observables.

This is a review volume containing articles written by experts on current theoretical topics in the subject of Quark-Gluon Plasma created in heavy-ion collisions at high energy. It is the fourth volume in the series with the same title sequenced numerically. The articles are written in a pedagogical style so that they can be helpful to a wide range of researchers from graduate students to mature physicists who have not worked previously on the subject. A reader should be able to learn from the reviews without having extensive knowledge of the background literature.

Though "at this point there is no uncontroversial evidence that a thermal quark-gluon plasma has [ever been observed]", that is not for want of thought and effort. The present volume contains fourteen theoretical papers which collectively provide graduate students and researchers with review of the present status of the topic, which touches upon much that is most fundamental about the structure of matter. Nicely edited, illustrated and produced (in Singapore). (NW) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book offers the unique possibility of tackling the problem of hadronic deconfinement from different perspectives. After general introductions to the physical issues, from both the theoretical and the experimental point of view, the book presents the most recent expertise on field theory approaches to the QCD phase diagram, many-body techniques and applications, the dynamics of phase transitions, and phenomenological analysis of relativistic heavy ion collisions. One of the major goals of this book is to promote interchange among those fields of research, which have traditionally been cultivated by different communities of physicists. The contributions in the book help in obtaining deep comprehension of this new state of matter, a system of deconfined quarks and gluons. At the same time the book offers a few examples of how the seeds of the deconfined state are looked for in the phenomenological analysis of the observables measured in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The main topics are dealt with in a pedagogical style, suitable for beginners as well as experienced researchers. Contents:Quark Liberation (N Cabibbo)Physics Perspectives of the ALICE Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (L Riccati & M Masera)Hard Probes of Matter in QCD (H Satz)Phenomenology of Heavy Ion Collisions and Observables:Heavy Ion Collision Phenomenology I: Soft Observables (F Becattini)Heavy Ion Collision Phenomenology II: Hard Probes (M Nardi)Many-Body Theories and the Nuclear Equation of State:Randomness in Nuclei and in the Quark–Gluon Plasma (A De Pace & A Molinari)Quantum Monte Carlo and Nuclear Astrophysics (S Fantoni et al.)Is the Equation of State of Strongly Interacting Matter Observable? (O Benhar)Isospin Effects at Finite Baryon Density (M Di Toro et al.)Semiclassical Description of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (S Terranova et al.)The QCD Phase Diagram:An Introduction to QCD at Non-Zero Temperature and Density (M-P Lombardo)Effective Fields in Dense Quantum Chromodynamics (G Nardulli)Aspects of the Quantum Chromodynamics Phase Diagram (F Sannino)The U(1) Axial Symmetry and the Chiral Transition in QCD (E Meggiolaro)Mechanisms of Confinement (L Del Debbio)and other topical talks Readership: Advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in nuclear and particle physics. Keywords:Quark-Gluon Plasma;Heavy Ion Collisions;Hadronic Deconfinement;Nuclear Physics;Particle Physics

The aim of this book is to offer to the next generation of young researchers a broad and largely self-contained introduction to the physics of heavy ion collisions and the quark-gluon plasma, providing material beyond that normally found in the available textbooks. For each of the main aspects - QCD thermodynamics and global features of the QGP, collision hydrodynamics, electromagnetic probes, jet and quarkonium production, color glass condensate, and the gravity connection - the present volume provides extensive and pedagogical lectures, surveying the present status of both theory and experiment. A particular feature of this volume is that all lectures have been written with the active assistance of selected students present at the course in order to ensure the adequate level and coverage for the intended readership.