Dynamics of ultradense matter produced in relativistic nuclear collisions

Arkansas State University Main Campus, Jonesboro AR

Investigators

Abstract

0140046 Zhang During the initial stage of relativistic nuclear collisions, enormous amount of energy is deposited in the collision region and the temperature and density can be high enough that individual hadrons lose their identities. Instead of being confined in hadrons, quarks and gluons can now move "freely" in this collision region. The matter thus produced is called the Quark-Gluon Plasma. The transition between hadronic matter and the Quark-Gluon Plasma gives us insight into the interactions between quarks and gluons under extreme conditions. It is also useful for the understanding of processes going on in other high temperature and/or high density regions, for example, in the early Universe and in the cores of neutron stars. To extract information about the Quark-Gluon Plasma from the experimental observables, to bridge the initial quark and gluon distributions and the final hadron distributions, the PI will investigate the effects of the space-time evolution of the strongly interacting matter produced in relativistic collisions. In particular, a transport model approach will be further developed and used as the major theoretical tool for a detailed study of the transient formation and evolution of the finite size, ultradense system produced in relativistic nuclear collisions with nonequilibrium, viscous effects automatically taken into account. The research will advance the understanding of strong interaction physics that is the focus of current experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the nuclear physics program at the future Large Hadron Collider at CERN.