Current status of the theoretical treatment of the space-time evolution in nuclear collision processes

The authors present a review of the theoretical treatment of nuclear collision dynamics. After an introduction to the nuclear equation of state the pauli principle and the nucleon-nucleon cross section as the main ingredients for all theoretical approaches are described. Then hot nuclear liquid multifragmentation, the dynamical emission of Mach shock fragments, the multiplicity of intermediate-mass fragments, the bounce-off fragments, the influence of matter effects on the collective flow, the squeeze out in central collisions, the energy flow perpendicular to the reaction plane, the pion production in nuclear matter, and a Lorentz-invariant quantum molecular-dynamics approach are debed. (HSI)