Written primarily for researchers and graduate students who are new in this emerging field, this book develops the necessary tools so that readers can follow the latest advances in this subject. Readers are first guided to examine the basic informations on nucleon-nucleon collisions and the use of the nucleus as an arena to study the interaction of one nucleon with another. A good survey of the relation between nucleon-nucleon and nucleus-nucleus collisions provides the proper comparison to study phenomena involving the more exotic quark-gluon plasma. Properties of the quark-gluon plasma and signatures for its detection are discussed to aid future searches and exploration for this exotic matter. Recent experimental findings are summarised.

This is an updated version of the book published in 1985. QCD-motivated, it gives a detailed description of hadron structure and soft interactions in the additive quark model, where hadrons are regarded as composite systems of dressed quarks.In the past decade it has become clear that nonperturbative QCD, responsible for soft hadronic processes, may differ rather drastically from perturbative QCD. The understanding of nonperturbative QCD requires a detailed investigation of the experiments and the theoretical approaches. Bearing this in mind, the book has been rewritten paying special attention to the interplay of soft hadronic collisions and the quark model. It is at the crossroads of these domains that peculiar features of strong QCD reveal themselves.The book discusses constituent quarks, diquarks, the massive effective gluons and the problem of scalar isoscalar mesons. The quark-gluonium classification of meson states is also given. Experimentally observed properties of hadrons are presented together with the corresponding theoretical interpretation in the framework of the composite hadron structure.The text includes a large theoretical part, which shows how to treat composite systems (including relativistic ones) with a technique based on spectral integration. This technique provides the possibility of handling hadrons as weakly bound systems of quarks and, at the same time, takes into account confinement.Attention is focused on the composite structure revealing itself in high energy hadron collisions. Fields of applicability of the additive quark model are discussed, as is colour screening in hadronic collisions at high and superhigh energies. Along with a detailed presentation of hadron-hadron collisions, a description of hadron-nucleus collisions is given.

Filling a gap in the current literature, this book is the first entirely dedicated to high energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD) including parton saturation and the color glass condensate (CGC). It presents groundbreaking progress on the subject and describes many problems at the forefront of research, bringing postgraduate students, theorists and interested experimentalists up to date with the current state of research in this field. The material is presented in a pedagogical way, with numerous examples and exercises. Discussion ranges from the quasi-classical McLerran–Venugopalan model to the linear BFKL and nonlinear BK/JIMWLK small-x evolution equations. The authors adopt both a theoretical and an experimental outlook, and present the physics of strong interactions in a universal way, making it useful for physicists from various subcommunities of high energy and nuclear physics, and applicable to processes studied at all high energy accelerators around the world. A selection of color figures is available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521112574.

Charmonium suppression is a promising signal of quark-gluon plasma. In this volume, the latest development both in experiments and in the theory of charmonium production in high-energy nuclear collisions are presented and discussed.

Some ideas/concepts in relativistic heavy ion collisions are discussed. To a large extent, the discussions are non-comprehensive and non-rigorous. It is intended for fresh graduate students of Homi Bhabha National Institute, Kolkata Centre, who are intending to pursue career in theoretical /experimental high energy nuclear physics. Comments and criticisms will be appreciated

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