The general characteristics of the transition from hadronic matter of nucleons, three quark bags, mesons of quark antiquark pairs to quark gluon plasma is discussed. The phenomenological approach essentially guided by the MIT bag model and general thermodynamic criteria of first-order phase transition is elaborated. The more realistic calculations using the QCD lattice renormalization quark are touched upon. Possible signals of quark-gluon plasma are discussed. The central issue of deciphering plasma signals from the signals of hot hadronic matter is discussed in detail.

The signals of the quark-gluon plasma, a subject of considerable interest in contemporary literature are focussed only on (i) dileptons (ii) photon photon pairs and (iii)J/Ψ suppression (with special emphasis on CERN experiments). The lingering shadow of “EMC” effect is also mentioned.

Relics of the very early universe microseconds after the big bang in today’s universe (∼ 15 billion years later) are discussed. Finally, the outlook of this very exciting field is presented, a purely personal viewpoint, generalized eventually to poetic signals of the creation of the universe.

Successive equilibration of quark degrees of freedom and its effects on electromagnetic signals of quark gluon plasma are discussed. The effects of the variation of vector meson masses and decay widths on photon production from hot strongly interacting matter formed after Pb + Pb and S + Au collisions at CERN SPS energies are considered. It has been shown that the present photon spectra measured by WA80 and WA98 Collaborations can not distinguish between the formation of quark matter and hadronic matter in the initial state.

A first-order quark hadron phase transition in the early Universe may lead to the formation of quark nuggets. The baryon number distribution of these quark nuggets have been calculated and it has been found that there are sizeable number of quark nuggets in the stable sector. The nuggets can clump and form bigger objects in the mass range of 0.0003M⊙ to 0.12M⊙. It has been discussed that these bigger objects can be possible candidates for cold dark matter.

A novel gas-based detector using large arrays of honeycomb cells has been developed and tested for use as a pre-shower photon multiplicity detector (PMD) for STAR and ALICE experiments. The appropriate cell design was arrived at using GARFIELD simulations. Prototype chambers with cell dimensions corresponding to STAR and ALICE were fabricated and tested at CERN PS and SPS. The charged particle detection efficiency and the pre-shower characteristics have been studied using pion and electron beams.