Quark Matter 2008

Abstract

Quark Matter 2008—the 20th International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus–Nucleus Collisions was held in Jaipur, the Pink City of India, from 4–10 February, 2008. Organizing Quark Matter 2008 in India itself indicates the international recognition of the Indian contribution to the field of heavy-ion physics, which was initiated and nurtured by Bikash Sinha, Chair of the conference.The conference was inaugurated by the Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Smt. Vasundhara Raje followed by the key note address by Professor Carlo Rubbia. The scientific programme started with the theoretical overview, `SPS to RHIC and onwards to LHC' by Larry McLerran followed by several theoretical and experimental overview talks on the ongoing experiments at SPS and RHIC. The future experiments at the LHC, FAIR and J-PARC, along with the theoretical predictions, were discussed in great depth. Lattice QCD predictions on the nature of the phase transition and critical point were vigorously debated during several plenary and parallel session presentations.The conference was enriched by the presence of an unprecedented number of participants; about 600 participants representing 31 countries across the globe. This issue contains papers based on plenary talks and oral presentations presented at the conference. Besides invited and contributed talks, there were also a large number of poster presentations.Members of the International Advisory Committee played a pivotal role in the selection of speakers, both for plenary and parallel session talks. The contributions of the Organizing Committee in all aspects, from helping to prepare the academic programme down to arranging local hospitality, were much appreciated. We thank the members of both the committees for making Quark Matter 2008 a very effective and interesting platform for scientific deliberations.Quark Matter 2008 was financially supported by: Air Liquide (New Delhi) Board of Research Nuclear Sciences (Mumbai) Bose Institute (Kolkata) Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton) Danfysik, Department of Science and Technology (New Delhi) Elsevier B V (Amsterdam) Government of Rajasthan European Organization for Nuclear Research (Geneva) Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung (Darmstadt) Hewlett-Packard Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Bangalore) Institute of Physics (Bhubaneswar) IOP Publishing (Bristol) Merint Infrastructure Ltd. Rajasthan Travel service (Jaipur) RIKEN-BNL Research Centre (Upton) Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (Kolkata) Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai) The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Chennai) Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (Kolkata)Without the generous support of these organizations it would not have been possible to organize the conference successfully.Jaipur is a city of valour, of battles won and lost, of the vanquished and the victors; Jaipur is a city of legends and romance. Now Jaipur is also a city of carnival; carnival in the world of quarks and gluons with the beautiful maiden ALICE gracing the quarkland.