Rafelski's current research interests center around investigation of the vacuum structure of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and quantum electrodynamics (QED) in the presence of strong fields; study of the QCD vacuum structure and deconfinement with strange particle production[3] in deconfined quark–gluon plasma formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions; the formation of matter out of quark–gluon plasma in the hadronization process,[4] also in the early Universe;[5] considering antimatter formation and annihilation.

Rafelski studied physics at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, where he received his PhD in the spring of 1973 working with Walter Greiner on strong fields[9] and muonic atom tests of QED.

[19] The start-up of experimental work on quark–gluon plasma has led to another enduring collaboration with the University of Paris 7-Jussieu involving Jean Letessier.

In the foreword of the first volume, former director-general of CERN, Herwig Schopper, states that the book fulfills two purposes which have been neglected for a long time.

[26] Primarily a festschrift (an 'honorary book'), it "...delivers the proper credit to physicist Rolf Hagedorn for his important role at the birth of a new research field"; and it describes how a development which he started just 50 years ago is "...closely connected to the most recent surprises in the new experimental domain of relativistic heavy ion physics...".