  The past decade has seen huge advances in experimental measurements made in
heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and more
recently at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These new data, in combination
with theoretical advances from calculations made in a variety of frameworks,
have led to a broad and deep knowledge of the properties of thermal QCD matter.
Increasingly quantitative descriptions of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created
in these collisions have established that the QGP is a strongly coupled liquid
with the lowest value of specific viscosity ever measured. However, much
remains to be learned about the precise nature of the initial state from which
this liquid forms, how its properties vary across its phase diagram and how, at
a microscopic level, the collective properties of this liquid emerge from the
interactions among the individual quarks and gluons that must be visible if the
liquid is probed with sufficiently high resolution. This white paper, prepared
by the Hot QCD Writing Group as part of the U.S. Long Range Plan for Nuclear
Physics, reviews the recent progress in the field of hot QCD and outlines the
scientific opportunities in the next decade for resolving the outstanding
issues in the field.
