Chiral symmetry and heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

I revisit the phase structure of hot and dense matter out of quarks and gluons with some historical consideration on the color deconfinement and chiral phase transitions. My goal is to make clear which part of the QCD phase diagram is under theoretical control and which part is not. I demonstrate that an uncommon but logically possible scenario other than the standard phase diagram cannot be ruled out. My emphasis is on the concern that one should correctly understand what kind of phenomenon occurs associated with the phase boundary line on the diagram. It is not obvious, in particular, where chiral symmetry restoration plays a phenomenological role in the temperature and baryon density plane except at the QCD (chiral) critical point.