Initial state fluctuations and final state correlations: Status and open questions

Understand

The recent appreciation of the importance of event-by-event fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions has lead to a large amount of diverse theoretical and experimental activity.

• In particular, there is significant interest in understanding the fluctuations in the initial stage of a collision, how exactly these fluctuations are propagated through the system evolution, and how they are manifested in correlations between measured particles.
• In order to address these questions a workshop was organized on "Initial State Fluctuations and Final State Correlations", held at ECT* in Trento, Italy during the week of 2--6 July, 2012.
• The goal was to collect recent work in order to provide a coherent picture of the current status of our understanding, to identify important questions that remain open, and to set a course for future research.