The QCD Phase Transition

The QCD phase transition is the transition between matter consisting of quarks and gluons (quark-gluon plasma QGP) and matter consisting of nuclear matter and hadrons. During the expansion of the very early universe the 'big bang' matter crossed this transition approximately 10 microseconds after the origin. Since more than 30 years an international community of several thousands of scientist is studying such matter by the analysis of collisions among heavy nuclei at high energy, the current experimental effort is concentrated at the RHIC collider in the US and the LHC collider at CERN. Research focuses on the determination of the transition temperature, on the possible existence of a critical endpoint  in the phase diagram,  as well as on the determination of the dynamics and equation of state of the QGP.

For the planned  seminar we would like to get together the world's experts on the theoretical  and experimental investigation of the QCD phase transition with the aim to summarize the current status and to develop ideas for future studies. We believe this seminar is particularly timely at the start of LHC Run3, and with new data in sight from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan as well as from sPHENIX, NA61, and the future FAIR and NICA facilities.

The conference language will be English. The Wilhelm and Else Heraeus-Foundation bears the cost of full-board accommodation for all participants.