Simulating the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, strongly interacting particles at high temperature or density are expected to produce weakly interacting “deconfined” quarks and gluons the famous quarkgluon plasma.
Existing experiments using high-energy beams of heavy ions at CERN’s SPS synchrotron CERES/NA45 (electron-pair production in high-energy heavy-ion collisions) and NA38, NA50, NA51 (muon production in high-energy heavy-ion collisions) have achieved results that may indicate that the plasma has already been observed.
In a new energy domain, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven will begin its search later this year and, looking further ahead, understanding the plasma is a primary focus of heavy-ion physics at CERN’s LHC.
Awaiting definitive observation and measurements, more work is necessary to develop a theoretical understanding of the plasma’s properties and to provide unambiguous signals of its production. In quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the field theory of quarks and gluons, which is the framework for this understanding, complementary tools are provided by numerical simulations of QCD on spacetime lattices and by QCD modelling.
A workshop at the European Centre for Theoretical Studies (ECT), Trento, Italy, followed a 1998 meeting in Bielefeld and attracted interested theorists. The SPS experimental collaborations were also represented.
ECT funding covered the bulk of participants’ local expenses. Members of the lattice-QCD community benefited from the European Union’s Finite Temperature Phase Transitions in Particle Physics training and mobility network.
Proceedings will be published by World Scientific.
