What RHIC experiments and theory tell us about properties of quark–gluon plasma? Original Research Article

This brief review summarizes the main experimental discoveries made at RHIC and then discusses their implications. The robust collective flow phenomena are well described by ideal hydrodynamics, with the equation of state (EoS) predicted by lattice simulations. However the transport properties turned out to be unexpected, with rescattering cross section one-to-two orders of magnitude larger than expected from perturbative QCD. These and other theoretical developments indicate that quark–gluon plasma (QGP) produced at RHIC, and probably in a wider temperature region Tc