The SPS Heavy Ion Programme
arXiv:hep-ph/0405051 · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2004.08.009
Abstract
Statistical QCD predicts with increasing temperature a transition from hadronic matter to a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons. The SPS Heavy Ion Programme was initiated to study this transition and the resulting quark-gluon plasma. After summarizing the different probes for the collision evolution, I survey the experimental results obtained so far and assess the conclusions that can be drawn.
16 pages, 22 figures, 1 table; to appear in CERN 50th Anniversary issue of Physics Reports revised version: updated figures, small corrections