Speaker
Jean-Paul Blaizot
Description
Most of the particles that are produced in a nucleus-nucleus collision at
high energy involve partons that carry a very small fraction of the momentum
of the colliding nucleons. These "small-x" partons, mostly gluons, form high
density systems in which new phenomena are expected to occur, such as "gluon
saturation". This talk will present a pedagogical introduction to the
various facets of this phenomenon, and review the progress that has been
achieved in its study over the last two decades. The possible role of high
gluon densities in the early stages of heavy ion collisions will be also
discussed.
