Experimental results on quantum chromo dynamics: what is next?

This review gives a flavour of experimental quantum chromo dynamics (QCD) results obtained at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during the first run period in the years 2010–2012. The results cover selected aspects of soft low-pT phenomena, typically described by phenomenological models, as well as high-pT processes which can be studied theoretically with perturbative techniques. In general the phenomenological models required tuning to describe the data in the new energy region of 7–8 TeV, while perturbative QCD (pQCD) is found to work generally quite well for most of the phase space currently studied. The strong force will remain a main topic of research at colliders such as the LHC also in future, with the large data samples allowing for more detailed studies and in particular when the next energy level of 13–14 TeV will be reached.