Colloquium- “Quark-gluon plasma: the earliest and simplest form of complex matter” with Dr. Georgios Krintiras
Physics Colloquium
April 19, 2023
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location
SES 138
Calendar
Download iCal FileContrary to the cosmic microwave background, signs of the primordial, high temperature T, matter that filled the microseconds old universe after the big bang have long since disappeared. The earliest form of matter should have consisted of a plasma of weakly interacting, almost “asymptotically free”, quarks and gluons (for brevity QGP). But how did the wonderful variety of matter that we see all around us emerge from such fundamentally simple interactions? One of the main paths toward tackling this challenge is 1) to recreate droplets of big bang matter by colliding heavy ion collisions, 2) to probe the resulting QGP on varying length scales, and 3) to understand the initial state of the heavy ions well before any QGP is formed. By tuning into shorter (weakly coupled QGP) and larger (tightly coupled QGP) wavelengths than 1/T, and wavelengths in between, we “record” how the plasma responds to the passage of experimental probes through it. One then speaks about “final-state interactions”, as opposed to the initial-state ones, which are associated with high-density effects like saturation in the incoming wavefunctions of gluons. In this talk, I will discuss how the community has been using heavy ion collisions to gain insight into perhaps the simplest form of complex matter and point toward a much deeper understanding made possible by future data in existing and forthcoming facilities.
Date posted
Apr 17, 2023
Date updated
Apr 17, 2023