Review of high energy heavy ion experiments

It has been proposed that in high energy heavy ion collisions a physical conditions similar to the early stage of the Universe can be established in the laboratory. New phase of matter expected to be created is called the quark gluon plasma (QGP). Based on the motivation to create the QGP in the laboratory, heavy ion beams have been accelerated at AGS of Brookhaven National Laboratory and also at CERN-SPS. Several interesting features of the data have been reported, among which are: the suppression of J/ψ production in Pb+Pb collisions, the enhancement of low mass lepton pairs, and the collective behavior of hadron production. These features are reviewed under the key words of Deconfinement, Chiral Restoration and Collectivity in the lecture. (author)