Austin Baty, PhD
Assistant Professor
Physics
Contact
Building & Room:
2266 SES
Address:
845 West Taylor St.
Office Phone:
Email:
Related Sites:
About
Professor Baty studies a form of incredibly hot, dense matter that existed only a microsecond
after the Big Bang, known as the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). As a member of the CMS
Collaboration, Austin and his colleagues experimentally create and examine this matter in a
laboratory setting using high-energy collisions of heavy ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
in Geneva, Switzerland. More generally, Austin is interested in how the complex phenomena
exhibited by the QGP can emerge from the underlying theory of the strong force, Quantum
Chromodynamics (QCD). He plans to use the massive data sets produced by CMS during the
LHC Run 3 (2022-2025) and Run 4 (2029-2032) to tackle this question.
Austin’s research extends beyond the examination of heavy ion collisions. Austin has analyzed
electron-positron and proton-proton collisions in efforts to make connections between nuclear
and high energy physics. On the technical side of things, he has led developments for the
CMS particle tracking and data acquisition systems. Now he is involved with the ePIC
Collaboration in the development of a new detector that will operate at the future Electron-Ion
Collider, which promises to enable precision studies of nuclear structure and QCD.
Austin completed his Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Math from Texas A&M University in
2013, and received his Ph.D. in Physics in 2019 from MIT, where he was a School of Science
Fellow. He then spent four years at Rice University as a Rice Academy Fellow before coming
to UIC in 2023.
Selected Publications
- “Novel observables for exploring QCD collective evolution and quantum entanglement within
individual jets.” Phys. Rev. C 107 (2023), 064908. - “Constraints on the Initial State of Pb-Pb Collisions via Measurements of Z-Boson Yields and
Azimuthal Anisotropy at √s_NN= 5.02 TeV.” CMS Collaboration. PRL 127 (2021) 102002. - “Measurements of two-particle correlations in e+e- collisions at 91 GeV with ALEPH archived
data.” PRL 123 (2019) 212002. - “Charged-particle nuclear modification factors in XeXe collisions at √s_NN = 5.44 TeV.” CMS
Collaboration. JHEP 10 (2018) 138. - “Charged-particle nuclear modification factors in PbPb and pPb collisions at √s_NN = 5.02
TeV.” CMS Collaboration. JHEP 1704 (2017) 039. - “Measurement of transverse momentum relative to dijet systems in PbPb and pp collisions at
√s_NN = 2.76 TeV.” CMS Collaboration. JHEP 01 (2016) 006.
Education
B.S., Physics and Math (2013), Texas A&M University
Ph.D., Physics (2019), Massachusetts Institute of Technology