Phase Structure of Strongly Interacting Matter under Extreme Conditions

Abstract

One of the key open questions in studies on strongly interacting matter is the phase structure of QCD and the nature of the transition between ordinary hadronic matter and the deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at extreme temperatures exceeding trillions of Kelvin. This talk will cover how the properties of strongly interacting matter can be studied in the laboratory through ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions and through phenomenological approaches. Particular emphasis is placed on the search for the QCD critical point in the phase diagram separating ordinary matter and QGP through the analysis of event-by-event fluctuations. I will discuss the constraints on the QCD critical point coming from recent theoretical approaches, data from Au-Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven, and future perspectives.