77th International Conference on the Initial Stages in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions

In the first microseconds after the Big Bang, the Early Universe consisted mainly of quarks and gluons: quark-gluon plasma (QGP). By colliding lead ions at ultrarelativistic energies at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, we can recreate essential features of the Early Universe in a small "Big Bang" and study its properties under controlled conditions. The major uncertainty in the QGP study comes from the unknown initial conditions that set the stage for the dynamical QGP evolution. Hence, it is scientifically urgent to understand the initial conditions in the various collision types in which the QGP is produced. This is the critical topic of the IS2023 conference that we will organize in June 2023, assembling about 150 international experts at the Niels Bohr Institute.