Rob Pisarski, Distinguished Scientist, Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Ugly Duckling and the Swan: The Quark-Gluon Plasma and Heavy Ion Collision

I give a pedagogical and historical overview of the search for the Quark-Gluon plasma (QGP) in the collisions of heavy ions. I begin with a brief review of why we expect a QGP to be formed at high temperature. In this, numerical simulations in lattice Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) form the bedrock of the field. In particular, they demonstrate the relationship between deconfinement and the restoration of chiral symmetry.