Relativistic and Ultrarelativistic Nuclear Collisions: Dynamics and Phase Transitions

Dear Colleagues,

The major experiments performed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) from BNL, USA, as well as at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, have revealed the formation of quark–gluon plasma and significant hydrodynamic collective behavior, similar to a nearly perfect fluid. Some clarifications regarding the evolution of the Universe have been obtained. In agreement with cosmological scenarios, including Gamow's “Big Bang" scenario, the quark–gluon plasma appears a few microseconds after impact, and therefore it is possible to reproduce in the laboratory the conditions existing at that time in the Universe.

There are other interesting nuclear matter phases, and the types of possible phase transitions are very important for the study of the structure of nuclear matter and possible interactions. The current phase diagram of nuclear matter still has areas that are not fully covered by the experimental data and results. Therefore, some laboratories have made efforts to scan over a wide range of energies, using the same experimental arrangement with normalization in proton–proton collisions. There have been remarkable results from RHIC–BNL and efforts at SPS-CERN and the Tevatron (USA). There are also experimental results at lower energies, from JINR Dubna, LNBL, etc.

On the other hand, the scientific community has proposed building new and different acceleration and detector systems in order to cover other energies, especially in the phase transition region. Two projects are of great interest, namely FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) at GSI Darmstadt, Germany (www.gsi.de), and NICA (Nuclotron-Based Ion Collider Facility) at JINR Dubna, Russia. Both projects are now in an advanced stage, and the proposed experiments are already reaching the completion of technical design reports for the detectors.

The synthesis of the major results obtained and significant proposals of new results could aid our understanding of the unsolved fundamental problems of this very interesting field.

Therefore, the goal of this Special Issue of Particles is to offer insights into these interesting aspects, both experimental and theoretical.

Prof. Dr. Alexandru Jipa
Guest Editor

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• Experiments
• Collision geometry and bulk properties
• Collision dynamics
• Hydrodynamics
• Thermalization
• Flow
• Correlations
• Fluctuations
• Phase transitions
• Nuclear matter