Quark-Gluon Plasma: Theoretical Foundations: An Annotated Reprint Collection

The purpose of this volume is to trace the development of the
theoretical understanding of quark-gluon plasma, both in terms of the
equation of state and thermal correlation functions and in terms of
its manifestation in high energy nuclear collisions. Who among us has
not wondered how tall a mountain is on a neutron star, what happens
when matter is heated and compressed to higher and higher densities,
what happens when an object falls into a black hole, or what happened
eons ago in the early universe? The study of quark-gluon plasma is
related in one way or another to these and other thought provoking
questions. Oftentimes the most eloquent exposition is given in the
original papers. To this end a selection is made of what are the
most important pioneering papers in this field. The early 1950s was
an era when high energy multiparticle production in cosmic ray
interactions attracted the attention of some of the brightest minds
in physics, and so it should be no surprise that the first reprinted
papers deal with the introduction of statistical models of particle
production. The quark model arose in the 1960s, while QCD as such
was recognized as the theory of the strong interactions in the
1970's. The behavior of matter at high temperatures and supranuclear
densities became of wide interest in the nuclear and particle physics
communities starting in the 1970s, which is when the concept of
quark-gluon plasma became established. The history of the field has
been traced up to the early 1990s. There are three reasons for
stopping at that point in time. First, most of the key theoretical
concepts and formalisms arosebefore 1993, although many of them
continue to be developed today and hopefully well into the future.
Second, papers written after 1992 are much more readily available
than those writen before due to the advent of the World Wide Web and
its electronic preprin