Charmonium and heavy quarks: status and future perspectives

The study of the production of heavy quarks and quarkonia in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions is crucial for our understanding of high-temperature QCD. In particular, quarkonia states are sensitive to the presence of a deconfined state, and the study of heavy quark propagation in the medium created in the collision gives important information on the attained parton density. In this paper, I will shortly review the main questions that can be addressed by the study of these hard probes, summarize the SPS and RHIC results presented at this Conference and outline possible developments in the field.Arrival of the final proofs: 22 July 2005PACS: 25.75.Nq