Formation of disoriented chiral condensates in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We present a brief review of the subject of disoriented chiral condensates (DCC). We describe the conventional scenarios for the formation of DCC which have been proposed in the literature. Observable signals, such as fluctuations in neutral to charged pion ratio, are discussed. We then discuss a novel scenario for DCC formation, recently proposed by us, where the entire region of hot partons can get converted into a single large DCC. Our arguments suggest that formation of such large DCC is unlikely in the collision of heavy nuclei, and ultra-high energy hadronic collisions may be better suited for this.