Overview

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the fundamental theory for the strong interaction between quarks and gluons. It is widely believed that phase transitions for color deconfinement exist at high temperatures or baryon densities, and that QCD matter will be in a new phase, i.e., the so-called quark-gluon plasma (QGP), under these extreme conditions. The only known way to achieve the deconfinement phase transitions in the laboratory is through high-energy nuclear collisions. Over the past two decades, nuclear collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have provided a vast amount of data over a wide range in center-of-mass energy. QGP is believed to be created in the early stage of those collisions, evidenced by multiple signatures, such as collective flow, jet quenching, and quarkonium suppression. This Special Issue is dedicated to the following Chinese pioneers in this field: Hong-Fang Chen, Liao-Shou Liu, Ru-Keng Su, and Qu-Bing Xie. The contributed papers focus on recent progress in global properties of QGP and multiparticle production in heavy-ion collisions.