Initial state fluctuations and final state collectivity in high energy nuclear collisions: Status and Outlook

Abstract

We review recent developments in the theoretical description of the initial state and collective dynamics in heavy ion and light-heavy ion collisions. After describing the current state of the art in event by event simulations of high energy nuclear collisions we will focus on open issues. These include early time non-equilibrium dynamics, small collision systems (p+p, p+A), hydrodynamic fluctuations, and lower beam energies ( < 200 GeV).