The Quark-Gluon Plasma in Equilibrium

Our current knowledge of the quark-gluon plasma in thermodynamical equilibrium is reviewed. The phase diagram of strongly interacting matter is discussed, with emphasis on the quark-hadron phase transition and the color-superconducting phases of quark matter. Lattice QCD results on the order of the phase transition, the thermodynamical functions, the heavy quark free energy, mesonic spectral functions, and recent results for nonzero quark chemical potential are presented. Analytic attempts to compute the thermodynamical properties of strongly interacting matter, such as perturbation theory, quasiparticle models, ``hard-thermal-loop''(HTL)-resummed perturbation theory, the Polyakov-loop model, as well as linear sigma models are discussed. Finally, color-superconducting quark matter is considered in the limit of weak coupling. The gap equation and the excitation spectrum are derived. The solution of the gap equation, gap parameters in various color-superconducting phases, and critical temperatures for the transition to normal-conducting quark matter are presented. A summary of gluon and photon properties in color superconductors is given.Comment: 89 pages, 26 figures, review for Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys, minor revisions to text, correction of typos, refs. adde

Remarks on the extraction of freeze-out parameters

I review the extraction of kinetic and chemical freeze-out parameters from experimental data, with particular emphasis on the underlying assumptions and the validity of the conclusions.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of 'Quark Matter 2001', revised version, refs. adde

Calculation of the expansion rate of the three-volume measure in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

In ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions the local three-volume measure is expanding in the longitudinal and transverse directions. This is similar to the Hubble-expansion of the universe, except that the former is not locally isotropic. As an example the expansion rate is calculated assuming that the energy-momentum tensor in the central region is that of an ideal fluid, undergoing Bjorken flow in longitudinal direction, and with initial conditions as expected for BNL-RHIC energy. While the longitudinal expansion of three-volume is independent of the energy density of the fluid, in case of 3+1 dimensional expansion the form of the hydrodynamical solution (rarefaction wave or deflagration shock) affects the three-volume expansion rate on the hadronization hypersurface. As a consequence the average expansion rate on that surface depends on the transverse size of the system. This may reflect in an impact-parameter dependence of the formation probability of light nuclei and of the freeze-out temperature of the strong interactions in the system.Comment: 10 Pages REVTEX, 4 Figures; Title slightly modified, 2 new figure

Relativistic Hydrodynamics for Heavy--Ion Collisions -- II. Compression of Nuclear Matter and the Phase Transition to the Quark--Gluon Plasma

We investigate the compression of nuclear matter in relativistic hydrodynamics. Nuclear matter is described by a $\sigma-\omega$--type model for the hadron matter phase and by the MIT bag model for the quark--gluon plasma, with a first order phase transition between both phases. In the presence of phase transitions, hydrodynamical solutions change qualitatively, for instance, one-dimensional stationary compression is no longer accomplished by a single shock but via a sequence of shock and compressional simple waves. We construct the analytical solution to the ``slab-on-slab'' collision problem over a range of incident velocities. The performance of numerical algorithms to solve relativistic hydrodynamics is then investigated for this particular test case. Consequences for the early compressional stage in heavy--ion collisions are pointed out.Comment: 22 pages, 12 uuencoded figure