Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions and the quark-gluon plasma

Ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions open the possibility of studying properties of nuclear matter under extreme conditions of temperature or baryon density in the laboratory. At sufficiently high energy density, nuclear matter is expected to form a quark-gluon plasma. The transition from hadronic to deconfined matter, the basic physics of plasmas, their formation in collisions, and the expected evolution of collisions are outlined. 17 refs.; 9 figs