Statistical Fluctuations as Probes of Dense Matter

Abstract

The use of statistical fluctuations as probes of the microscopic dynamics of hot and dense hadronic matter is reviewed. Critical fluctuations near the critical point of QCD matter are predicted to enhance fluctuations in pionic observables. Chemical fluctuations, especially those of locally conserved quantum numbers, such as electric charge and baryon number, can probe the nature of the carriers of these quantum numbers in the dense medium.

Comments: Talk given at Statistical QCD, Bielefeld (Germany), August 26-30, 2001