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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