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Buenas Ideas on the QCD Phase Diagram
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Asia/Tokyo
Maskawa Hall (YITP, Kyoto University)
Maskawa Hall
YITP, Kyoto University
Kitashirakawa Oiwakecho, Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, 606-8267
Description
⚠️ Important Notice: Scam Emails Some participants have received scam emails from third parties offering to arrange hotel reservations. The organizers do NOT work with any external travel agency. If you receive such an email, please ignore or delete it.
One of the central challenges in hadron physics is to elucidate the phase structure of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the fundamental theory of the Strong Interaction in terms of quarks and gluons. Understanding the QCD phase diagram is of crucial importance for the physics of hot media in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and nuclear/quark matter in neutron stars, and even for uncovering states in the Early Universe.
Studies of the QCD phase structure have a long history dating back to the birth of QCD itself in 70's. In recent years, however, significant new insights have been gained owing to advances in numerical simulation techniques, the accumulation of high-precision data from heavy-ion collision experiments, progress in neutron star observations, and developments in theoretical analysis. Examples include the emergence of new symmetries near the chiral crossover (i.e., chiral spin symmetry), the possible separation of deconfinement and chiral transitions based on large-$N_c$ approximations and the associated nontrivial intermediate state (i.e. spaghetti of quarks with glueballs called SQBG), the possible disappearance of a first-order phase transition in the chiral limit on the Columbia plot, and experimental results suggesting the existence of the QCD critical point. In addition, understanding the equation of state of neutron-star matter in the quarkyonic picture proposed within the large-$N_c$ framework has provided new perspectives on high-density QCD physics, such as the IR-suppressed distribution function of baryons, a nearly conformal quarkyonic window, etc.
Through active discussions spanning a broad range of perspectives, this workshop seeks to clarify the current challenges in QCD phase diagram research, identify future research directions, and promote further progress in this field.
Date and Venues
Date: May 26 (Tuesday) - May 29 (Friday), 2026
Venue: Maskawa Hall, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University
Directions to the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP) can be found on this page.
Important Registration Deadlines
Onsite participants requesting VISA support: March 15, 2026Onsite participants requesting financial support: March 31, 2026Onsite participants without any support: April 15, 2026
Online participants: May 25, 2026
List of Invited Speakers and Topics (tentative to be updated)
Christian Fischer (University of Giessen)
Columbia plot, critical point and bound states in dense QCD
Leonid Glozman (University of Graz)
QCD regimes/phases at small mu, their symmetries and Nc scaling
Masanori Hanada (Queen Mary University of London) [TBD]
Partial Deconfinement
Yui Hayashi (University of Tokyo)
Semiclassical description of confinement and anomaly
Etsuko Itou (YITP)
First-Principles Lattice Study of Dense QCD-like Theories
Toru Kojo (KEK)
Quarkyonic Matter and the QCD Phase Diagram at High Density
Jinfeng Liao (Indiana University)
Evidence for the magnetic component of quark-gluon plasma
Peter Lowdon (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Spectral Properties of QCD at Finite Temperature
Michal Marczenko (University of Wrocław)
Hadron spectra and thermodynamics for all quark flavors from a universal Hagedorn temperature
Larry McLerran (University of Washington)
Spaghetti of Quarks with Glueballs
Seung-il Nam (Pukyong National University)
K1(1270) decay in a hot hadronic medium
Álvaro Pastor-Gutiérrez (RIKEN)
Phases of QCD-like and chiral gauge theories
Jan Pawlowski (Heidelberg University)
Phase structure and dynamics of QCD at high densities
Robert Pisarski (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Semi-QGP, Moat Regime, and Chiral Anomaly
Alexander Rothkopf (Korea University)
Unscreened inter-quark potential at high temperatures
Volodymyr Vovchenko (University of Houston)
QCD phase diagram with constant entropy contours and fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions
Naoki Yamamoto (Keio University)
Color Superconductivity Revisited
Organizers
Yasumichi Aoki (RIKEN), Yuki Fujimoto (Niigata U), Kenji Fukushima (U Tokyo), Yui Hayashi (U Tokyo), Yoshimasa Hidaka (YITP, Kyoto), Masakiyo Kitazawa (YITP, Kyoto), Larry McLerran (U Washington), Yuya Tanizaki (YITP, Kyoto)
Support
Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University
RIKEN iTHEMS
Quark Nuclear Science Institute, The University of Tokyo
International Leading Research: Origins of Matter Explored through Femtoscale Quantum Many-Body Systems
In case this conference was helpful for your research projects, we really appreciate if you could mention it in the acknowledgements of the related papers. [sample sentence: The authors are grateful for the opportunity to engage in discussions at the YITP conference "Buenas Ideas on the QCD Phase Diagram" (YITP-26-4), which helped initiate/develop/complete this work.]
Related workshop
In the following week (June 1-4, 2026), "QCD Critical Point and Hydrodynamic Evolution" will be held. If you are interested, please look at the following webpage.
Participants