Exploring the QCD landscape with high-energy nuclear collisions

Abstract

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase diagram is usually plotted as temperature (T) versus the chemical potential associated with the conserved baryon number (μ_{B}). Two fundamental properties of QCD, related to confinement and chiral symmetry, allows for two corresponding phase transitions when T and μ_{B} are varied. Theoretically the phase diagram is explored through non-perturbative QCD calculations on lattice. The energy scale for the phase diagram (Λ_{QCD} ~ 200 MeV) is such that it can be explored experimentally by colliding nuclei at varying beam energies in the laboratory. In this paper we review some aspects of the QCD phase structure as explored through the experimental studies using high energy nuclear collisions. Specifically, we discuss three observations related to the formation of a strongly coupled plasma of quarks and gluons in the collisions, experimental search for the QCD critical point on the phase diagram and freeze-out properties of the hadronic phase.

Submitted to the New Journal of Physics focus issue "Strongly Correlated Quantum Fluids: From Ultracold Quantum Gases to QCD Plasmas"

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Strongly Correlated Quantum Fluids: Ultracold Quantum Gases, Quantum Chromodynamic Plasmas, and Holographic Duality
• STAR experiment results from the beam energy scan program at RHIC
• Measurement of the production and lepton charge asymmetry of $\text{W}$ bosons in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathbf{NN}}}=$ 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Selected Experimental Results from Heavy Ion Collisions at LHC
• Higher moment singularities explored by the net proton non-statistical fluctuations
• Elliptic flow of ϕ-meson a sensitive probe for onset of de-confinement transition in high energy heavy-ion collisions
• A Universal Lower Bound on the Specific Temperatures of AdS-Reissner-Nordstrom Black Holes with Flat Event Horizons
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• Study of the bulk properties of the system formed in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 14.5 GeV using the STAR detector at RHIC
• Thermal freeze-out parameters and pseudo-entropy from charged hadron spectra in high energy collisions
• Exploring the QCD phase diagram through relativistic heavy ion collisions
• Thermodynamic and hydrodynamic characteristics of interacting system formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions
• Energy dependence of inclusive photon elliptic flow in heavy-ion collision models