Scope of the meeting
With high- energy heavy-ion collisions one can probe hot and dense nuclear matter and explore the equation of state and the phase diagram of the strong interaction. Dense and hot nuclear matter plays also an important role for supernova explosions, black hole formation and star mergers, which produce gravitational waves. The purpose of the meeting is to bring together experts and young researchers in the areas of nuclear, particle and astro-physics in order to discuss the current status and the pertinent interrelations among these fields as well as to explore future directions, both in experiment and theory. The aim is to cover a broad range of topics to elucidate synergies and identify areas of future progress. This should be especially beneficial to the younger participants of the meeting.
In detail, the following topics will be presented and discussed:
- Phase diagram and equation of state of strong interaction matter
- Phenomenology and size dependence of high-energy nuclear collisions
- Lattice and continuum approaches to hot and dense QCD
- Search for the QCD critical end point
- Electromagnetic probes and spectral functions of hadrons in nuclear matter
- Quarkonia and open heavy flavors
- Particle correlations and fluctuations
- Nuclei, hyper-nuclei and exotica in heavy ion collisons
- Jets, parton energy loss, and parton-medium interactions
- QCD in large external magentic fields and in rotating systems
- Phase transitions in binary star mergers
- Future hadron and lepton colliders
