PHSD—A microscopic transport approach for strongly interacting systems

We present the basic ideas of the Parton–Hadron–String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which is a microscopic covariant dynamical model for strongly interacting systems formulated on the basis of Kadanoff–Baym equations for Green’s functions in phase-space representation (in 1st order gradient expansion beyond the quasiparticle approximation). The approach consistently describes the full evolution of a relativistic heavy-ion collision from the initial hard scattering and string formation through the dynamical deconfinement phase transition to the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (sQGP) as well as hadronization and the subsequent interactions in the expanding hadronic phase. The PHSD approach has been applied to p+p, p+A, and A+A collisions from lower SIS to LHC energies and been successful in describing a large number of experimental data including single-particle spectra, collective flow and electromagnetic probes. Some highlights of recent PHSD results will be presented.