Effective theories for nuclei at high energies

Abstract We discuss the application of the Color Glass Condensate (CGC), an effective field theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), to describe high-energy nuclear interactions. We first provide an introduction to the methods and language of the CGC, its role in understanding gluon saturation in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC, and its relevance in various scattering processes such as Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS). The application of the CGC effective field theory to describe hadron-hadron collisions is discussed in the scope of asymmetric dilute-dense collisions, and Heavy-Ion Collisions in the dense-dense limit. The review covers theoretical foundations, recent advancements, and phenomenological applications, focusing on using the CGC to determine the initial conditions of heavy-ion collisions.