Small x physics and RHIC data

TL;DR

This review discusses how the Color Glass Condensate framework models the initial stages of relativistic heavy ion collisions, highlighting recent progress in understanding multiparticle correlations as signals of early collision dynamics.

Contribution

It summarizes the application of the CGC framework to initial conditions and multiparticle correlations in heavy ion collisions, emphasizing recent advances.

Findings

Progress in modeling initial collision conditions

Understanding multiparticle correlations as signals

Application of CGC to RHIC data

Abstract

This is a review of applications of the Color Glass Condensate to the phenomenology of relativistic heavy ion collisions. The initial stages of the collision can be understood in terms of the nonperturbatively strong nonlinear glasma color fields. We discuss how the CGC framework can and has been used to compute properties of the initial conditions of AA collisions. In particular this has led to recent progress in understanding multiparticle correlations, which can provide a directly observable signal of the properties of the initial stage of the collision process.