Physics of Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ions

This paper is devoted to a general presentation of the physics of Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ions, as seen from the experimentalist close-quote s point of view. The aim of this research is the study of nuclear matter under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure, extending in this way our understanding of the strong interactions in general, and of colour confinement in particular. This young field of Physics has been growing rapidly in the past years, and any attempt to cover it in few pages will be rather sketchy and many important aspects will have to be left out. I will mainly try to cover the general motivations to undertake this study, and just mention the experimental challenges to be faced, the results from the experiments at CERN and BNL, and finally the fascinating program ahead of us, with a glimpse at the CERN LHC used as a heavy-ion collider. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics