SQM2006

Abstract

The International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM) was held on 26–31 March 2006 at the University of California Los Angeles campus. At the previous SQM conference in Cape Town, South Africa, the International Advisory Committee decided to label each conference with the year and not to enumerate future conferences in the series. Therefore, our conference is SQM2006.SQM2006 is the first conference in the SQM series where, upon the recommendation of the International Advisory Committee, heavy quark physics in heavy-ion collisions has become as important a focus as strange quarks. In light of recent results from RHIC on the strong suppression and non-zero elliptic flow for non-photonic electrons from heavy quark decays, heavy quarks have become an increasingly important probe of QCD properties of dense matter created at RHIC. The decision to expand coverage of heavy quark physics in the SQM scientific programme has therefore been very appropriate and timely.The conference programme on 26 March 2006 included a symposium where graduate students and post-docs reported their research results. This format was intended to provide opportunities for young researchers to present their results while avoiding parallel sessions. Drs Kenneth Barish, Markus Oldenburg, Giorgio Torrieri and Zhangbu Xu organized the scientific programme for the symposium based on contributed abstracts submitted to the conference.Our community has experienced a tremendous growth over the past several decades both in the depth and breadth of physics of heavy-ion collisions. The Frankfurt school of theoretical nuclear physics under the leadership of Professor Walter Greiner has played a significant role in our growth. The conference organizers decided that this gathering of our community would be the perfect opportunity to recognize Professor Greiner's great contribution to nuclear physics. We dedicate these proceedings to Professor Greiner for his 70th birthday.Ms Mary Jo Robertson served as conference coordinator. She and her crew organized all the conference activities and she has been essential for the success of the conference. Staff members from UCLA, Vahe Ghazikhanian, Stephen Trentalange, Mauro Leonardo, Josephine Morrell, Friedel Adler, Tuyet-Hong Truong-Ung, Leticia Cabeza, Karin Nachtigal, Martin Simon, Dylan Thein, Lingyu Xu and Craig Reaves, and graduate students Jingguo Ma, Johan Gonzalez, Xiaoyan Lin, Priscilla Kurnadi and David Staszak, also provided essential support for the conference.We wish to thank Tony Chan, Dean of Physical Sciences at UCLA, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy for financial support of the conference. Their sponsorship allowed many graduate students and junior physicists to attend the conference. We also thank the SQM2006 International Advisory Committee for their valuable input to the scientific programme and conference arrangement.