This book is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in high energy heavy-ion physics. It is relevant for students who will work on topics being explored at RHIC and the LHC. In the first part, the basic principles of these studies are covered including kinematics, cross sections (including the quark model and parton distribution functions), the geometry of nuclear collisions, thermodynamics, hydrodynamics and relevant aspects of lattice gauge theory at finite temperature. The second part covers some more specific probes of heavy-ion collisions at these energies: high mass thermal dileptons, quarkonium and hadronization. The second part also serves as extended examples of concepts learned in the previous part. Both parts contain examples in the text as well as exercises at the end of each chapter.- Designed for students and newcomers to the field- Focuses on hard probes and QCD- Covers all aspects of high energy heavy-ion physics- Includes worked example problems and exercises

This book gives an introduction to main ideas used in the physics of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The links between basic theoretical concepts (discussed gradually from the elementary to more advanced level) and the results of experiments are outlined, so that experimentalists may learn more about the foundations of the models used by them to fit and interpret the data, while theoreticians may learn more about how different theoretical ideas are used in practical applications. The main task of the book is to collect the available information and establish a uniform picture of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The properties of hot and dense matter implied by this picture are discussed comprehensively. In particular, the issues concerning the formation of the quark-gluon plasma in present and future heavy-ion experiments are addressed.

This first open access volume of the handbook series contains articles on the standard model of particle physics, both from the theoretical and experimental perspective. It also covers related topics, such as heavy-ion physics, neutrino physics and searches for new physics beyond the standard model. A joint CERN-Springer initiative, the "Particle Physics Reference Library" provides revised and updated contributions based on previously published material in the well-known Landolt-Boernstein series on particle physics, accelerators and detectors (volumes 21A, B1,B2,C), which took stock of the field approximately one decade ago. Central to this new initiative is publication under full open access

The last few years have seen some remarkable advances in the understanding of atomic phenomena. It is now possible to isolate atomic systems in traps, measure in coincidence the fragments of collision processes, routinely produce, and study multicharged ions. One can look at bulk matter in such a way that the fundamental atomic character is clearly evident and work has begun to tease out the properties of anti matter. The papers in this book reflect many aspects of modem Atomic Physics. They correspond to the invited talks at a conference dedicated to the study of "New Directions in Atomic Physics," which took place in Magdalene College, Cambridge in July of 1998. The meeting was designed as a way of taking stock of what has been achieved and, it was hoped, as a means of stimulating new research in new areas, along new lines. Consequently, an effort was made to touch on as many directions as we could in the four days of the meeting. We included some talks which overviewed whole subfields, as well as quite a large number of research contributions. There is a unity to Physics and we tried to avoid any artificial division between theory and experiment. We had roughly the same number of talks from those who are primarily concerned with making measurements, and from those who spend their lives trying to develop the theory to describe the experiments.

The principal goals of the study were to articulate the scientific rationale and objectives of the field and then to take a long-term strategic view of U.S. nuclear science in the global context for setting future directions for the field. Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter provides a long-term assessment of an outlook for nuclear physics. The first phase of the report articulates the scientific rationale and objectives of the field, while the second phase provides a global context for the field and its long-term priorities and proposes a framework for progress through 2020 and beyond. In the second phase of the study, also developing a framework for progress through 2020 and beyond, the committee carefully considered the balance between universities and government facilities in terms of research and workforce development and the role of international collaborations in leveraging future investments. Nuclear physics today is a diverse field, encompassing research that spans dimensions from a tiny fraction of the volume of the individual particles (neutrons and protons) in the atomic nucleus to the enormous scales of astrophysical objects in the cosmos. Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter explains the research objectives, which include the desire not only to better understand the nature of matter interacting at the nuclear level, but also to describe the state of the universe that existed at the big bang. This report explains how the universe can now be studied in the most advanced colliding-beam accelerators, where strong forces are the dominant interactions, as well as the nature of neutrinos.