This thesis covers several important topics relevant to our understanding of quark-gluon plasma. It describes measurement of the third-order harmonic flow using two-particle correlations and isolation of flow and non-flow contributions to particle correlations in gold-gold collisions. The work also investigates long-range longitudinal correlations in small systems of deuteron-gold collisions. The former is related to the hydrodynamic transport properties of the quark-gluon plasma created in gold-gold collisions. The latter pertains to the question whether hydrodynamics is applicable to small systems, such as deuteron-gold collisions, and whether the quark-gluon plasma can be formed in those small-system collisions. The work presented in this thesis was conducted with the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where the center-of-mass energy of both collision systems was a factor of 100 larger than the rest mass of the colliding nuclei. The results contained in this thesis are highly relevant to our quest for deeper understanding of quantum chromodynamics. The results obtained challenge the interpretation of previous works from several other experiments on small systems, and provoke a fresh look at the physics of hydrodynamics and particle correlations pertinent to high energy nuclear collisions.

This third book on Quark-Gluon plasma and heavy ion collisions follows the previous ones, published in 1988 and 2005, that described theoretical proposals for a large program, and then the QGP discovery at RHIC.The present one describes the rather mature field, with extensive program at RHIC and LHC colliders and corresponding theory. QGP turns out to be a strongly coupled medium made up of quarks and gluons, existing in exploding fireballs. It is the hottest form of matter created in a laboratory. Other subjects discussed in the book are QCD vacuum structure, including topological solitons and nonperturbative phenomena. It also includes some recent progress in theory of hadrons, bridging hadronic spectroscopy with partonic observables.

The study of quarks and their interactions through gluons has been an active area of research since their discovery. For two decades the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has been dedicated to studying the interactions between quarks by producing nuclear matter in an extremely dense and hot environment. It has been hypothesized that colliding beams of atomic nuclei near the speed of light creates the hot and dense environment in which all quarks in the nuclei de-confine to form a short-lived state of matter called a Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). Because of the short lifetime of QGP, it is impossible to observe it directly and, the only way to study such matter is through the final state particles. Two-particle correlation, which is defined using Pearson's normalized covariance, is one of the techniques to study the early interactions via the final state particles. A broad survey has been made to study the two-particle correlations of identified-charged hadrons (pi, K and p) in various ranges of momentum for the hadrons produced in √sNN=200 GeV Au+Au collisions at the STAR experiment at RHIC. A total of 2123 two-dimensional independent structures made by correlation coefficients in relative angular space in (eta, phi) for different combinations of identified hadrons have been studied. Correlations between any two identified particles contrasts to all-particle correlations giving an opportunity to study the contribution of each particle species in the hadronization processes. As a new feature, same-side anti-correlations are observed in both like-sign and unlike-sign pairs in certain yT bins and in certain identified particles. A significant feature of the final state distribution of particles is an azimuthal anisotropy which is defined as the second Fourier component; the amplitude is proportional to parameter v2. We report the measure of azimuthal anisotropy of identified hadrons for the first time and test for the factorization used in conventional analysis. The data presented here constitute a comprehensive measurement of the light-flavor, di-hadron density as function of collision centrality, transverse momentum and 2D relative angles in longitudinal (beam direction) and azimuthal directions.

This book offers the unique possibility of tackling the problem of hadronic deconfinement from different perspectives. After general introductions to the physical issues, from both the theoretical and the experimental point of view, the book presents the most recent expertise on field theory approaches to the QCD phase diagram, many-body techniques and applications, the dynamics of phase transitions, and phenomenological analysis of relativistic heavy ion collisions. One of the major goals of this book is to promote interchange among those fields of research, which have traditionally been cultivated by different communities of physicists. The contributions in the book help in obtaining deep comprehension of this new state of matter, a system of deconfined quarks and gluons. At the same time the book offers a few examples of how the seeds of the deconfined state are looked for in the phenomenological analysis of the observables measured in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The main topics are dealt with in a pedagogical style, suitable for beginners as well as experienced researchers.

This is a review volume containing articles written by experts on current theoretical topics in the subject of Quark-Gluon Plasma created in heavy-ion collisions at high energy. It is the fourth volume in the series with the same title sequenced numerically. The articles are written in a pedagogical style so that they can be helpful to a wide range of researchers from graduate students to mature physicists who have not worked previously on the subject. A reader should be able to learn from the reviews without having extensive knowledge of the background literature.

This is a sequel to the review volume Quark-Gluon Plasma. There are 13 articles contributed by leading investigators in the field, covering a wide range of topics about the theoretical approach to the subject. These contributions are timely reviews of nearly all the actively pursued problems, written in a pedagogical style suitable for beginners as well as experienced researchers.

This is a collection of exciting papers in the area of high energy nuclear collisions and quark gluon plasma. The volume covers lectures on the natures of hadronic matter at high temperature and/or density and signals of quark-hadron phase transitions. It also includes discussions and descriptions of the data of CERN and BNL nucleus-nucleus collisions. Other contributions deal with physics at RHIC, LHC and the PS-collider, collision simulators and various related topics.