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.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Kinematic Variables
• Nucleon–Nucleon Collisions
• Hard Processes in Nucleon–Nucleon Collisions
• Particle Production in a Strong Field
• Particle Production in Two-Dimensional Quantum Electrodynamics
• Classical String Model
• Dual Parton Model
• Quarks, Gluons, and Quark–Gluon Plasma
• Lattice Gauge Theory
• Results from Lattice Gauge Theory
• Nucleus–Nucleus Collisions
• High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions and Quark–Gluon Plasma
• Signatures for the Quark–Gluon Plasma (I – V)
• Summary
• Index

"The book is very well written and I can recommend it to all graduate students and researchers interested in the field of RHICs."