NPA Seminar, Benjamin Kimelman, UC Davis, "Phase Transitions and Where to Find Them: Probing the QCD Phase Diagram with Heavy-Ion Collisions"
Abstract: Relativistic heavy-ion collisions are a unique tool that allow us to probe QCD and its fundamental interactions; of particular interest is the phase transition between a hadron gas and a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Characterizing this phase transition and mapping out the QCD phase diagram have been some of the primary goals of relativistic heavy-ion collisions over the past two decades. This talk will cover the background of the QGP and discuss a selection of the important observations over the past 22 years of RHIC operations relating to the QCD phase diagram.