This conference brought together leading experts on the topic of nuclear dynamics. The focus was on the interaction between experimentalists and theorists. Special attention was given to working out unifying concepts between different energy regimes — from the Coulomb barrier to the ultra-relativistic RHIC domain. The proceedings reflect those efforts.

This conference brought together leading experts on the topic of nuclear dynamics. The focus was on the interaction between experimentalists and theorists. Special attention was given to working out unifying concepts between different energy regimes -- from the Coulomb barrier to the ultra-relativistic RHIC domain. The proceedings reflect those efforts.

The field of nuclear dynamics has evolved tremendously over the course of the 15 years of this workshop series. The workshop presently spans a very broad range of research interests. These include the development of concepts that will form the foundation of research for the quark-gluon plasma as well as current studies of very hot and dense baryonic matter through the measurement of pions, strange particles, dileptons, baryons and antimatter. The investigation of the decay of extremely hot nuclear systems blossomed with the dramatic observation of multifragmentation of heavy systems and detailed studies of the temporal and spatial extent of the system emitting fragments at a wide range of excitation energies. This also includes a continuing search for the liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter. An entirely new field of inquiry has begun with the advent of reaction studies with radioactive beams.This international workshop, attended by theorists and experimentalists from 20 institutions and 6 countries, continues to provide the opportunity for cross-fertilization between researchers involved in the broad range of research in nuclear dynamics as well as stimulating the interaction between experimentalists and theorists. The present status of research in the vigorous field of nuclear dynamics is reviewed.

This workshop was established as a forum for experts from different subfields in nuclear dynamics to investigate unifying concepts of nuclear reactions in different beam energy regimes. The proceedings contain an overview of recent experimental and theoretical progress in nuclear dynamics from ultra-subbarrier fusion studies to the physics of the quark-gluon plasma at AGS, CERN, and RHIC energies.

This volume provides a survey of recent experimental and theoretical developments in the rapidly expanding field of heavy ion physics. Prominent experts describe the recent advances from the dynamics of dissipative processes around the Coulomb barrier at the low end of the energy scale all the way up to the physics of the quark-gluon plasma.