This book introduces the traditional and novel techniques required to study the thermodynamic and transport properties of quark-gluon plasma. In particular, it reviews the construction of improved holographic models for QCD-like confining gauge theories and their applications in the physics of quark-gluon plasma. It also discusses the recent advances in the development of hydrodynamic techniques, especially those incorporating the effects of external magnetic fields on transport.

The book is primarily intended for researchers and graduate students with a background in quantum field theory and particle physics but who may not be familiar with the theory of strong interactions and holographic and hydrodynamic techniques required to study said interactions.

Autorentext

Umut Gürsoy is currently Associate Professor at Utrecht University, where he teaches and researches quantum field theory and particle physics. He holds Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Istanbul Technical University, Master of Physics from the Weizmann Institute and Ph.D. from MIT. He has been working on string theory, in particular applying string theory techniques to strongly correlated systems. He pioneered the theory of improved holographic QCD, which describes QCD in the limit of strong correlations. These methods, along with the hydrodynamic approaches developed by the author, are widely used to study the properties of the quarkgluon matter.

Inhalt
Introduction: AdS/CFT and heavy ion collisions.- Holographic QCD theories.- Improved holographic QCD - construction of the theory.- Thermodynamics and the confinement/deconfinement transition.- Flavor sector.- Hydrodynamics and transport coefficients.- Hard probes.- ihQCD at finite B.- Conclusion and a look ahead.