CAREER: Properties of Strongly Interacting Matter from Lattice QCD

University Of Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

A few microseconds after the Big Bang, the primordial Universe was in a Quark-Gluon Plasma state. Today, this phase of strongly interacting matter can be re-created under extreme conditions of temperatures or densities, like the ones achieved in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions currently taking place at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This project will support the experimental programs at RHIC and LHC by calculating observables from first principles and relating them to measurements. The purpose is to advance the understanding of strong interactions by answering unresolved questions related to the nature of the phase transition and the degrees of freedom, which populate the system in the different regions of the phase diagram. The high precision achievable currently in the theoretical calculations allows such a combined effort between theory and experiment for the first time. This project will help train the next generation of students working on the theory of fundamental interactions, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students will be exposed to an international environment and will learn the most advanced theoretical tools. The PI will promote physics to underrepresented minorities through public lectures, seminars and visits to Houston schools. The goal of this project is to achieve a microscopic understanding of Quark-Gluon Plasma properties. The project will help determine the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter, the degrees of freedom which populate its different regions, the evolution of the system through the QCD crossover transition and its thermodynamic properties in the deconfined phase. The methodology is to calculate relevant observables using numerical simulations from first principles and map them to measurements through phenomenological models. The specific objectives are as follows: determine the temperatures and densities in the QCD phase diagram at which hadrons are formed and relate them to the ones measured in experiment; constrain the existence and position of the critical point, at which the order of the phase transition changes; establish whether the interaction is strong enough to enable sequential, possibly flavor specific, hadron formation in the QGP. With its zero and finite-density components, the project will yield a coherent theoretical framework for the RHIC and LHC programs from first principles. Besides having immediate applications to heavy ion collisions, the project is expected to have a broader impact on other fields of physics, such as string theory, cosmology and condensed matter.