  This is a review of the physics prospects for relativistic heavy ion
collisions in the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The motivation for the study of
superdense matter created in relativistic heavy ion collision is the prospect
of observing a novel state of strongly interacting matter, the quark-gluon
plasma. Experiments at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven have yielded important
clues of the characteristic signatures of this new state. The LHC will extend
the range of energy densities that can be explored and facilitate the
observation of plentiful hard probes (jets, heavy quarks) of the properties of
the dense matter.
