Comprehensive Investigation of Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions at RHIC and the LHC

RHIC 和 LHC 超相对论重离子碰撞的综合研究

• 批准号: 238527-2013
• 负责人: Jeon, Sangyong
• 金额: $ 5.46万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=570439
• 关键词: Comprehensive; Investigation; Ultra; Relativistic; Heavy

In normal nuclear matter, quarks and gluons which constitute protons and neutrons, are permanently confined inside the hadrons. When temperature reaches trillions of kelvin, this is no longer true. At these extremely high temperatures, space is so packed with thermally produced hadrons that an individual hadron can no longer maintain the integrity of its confinement. In effect, ordinary nuclear matter "melts'' and releases the quarks and gluons. The liberated quarks and gluons then form a new state of matter called the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). This extreme state of matter existed in nature only about a microsecond after the Big-Bang. For the past 2 decades, relativistic heavy ion colliders at CERN in Europe and at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the US have been colliding heavy nuclei to create and characterize QGP. By now, the experiments have accumulated an ample amount of evidence that the sought-after QGP is indeed being created in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Many of the properties found in the experimental evidence were, however, highly surprising. For example, this hottest and densest matter ever created may also be one of the most strongly interacting systems ever observed, flowing more ideally than the superfluid Helium! There have been intense theoretical investigations on these properties by many groups in the world. However, there are still many important puzzles that await theoretical resolution even as the LHC at CERN is beginning to accumulate a tremendous amount of new data at an unprecedentedly high colliding energy. A comprehensive understanding of QGP in heavy ion collisions calls for a remarkable range of theoretical arsenals. This includes classical Yang-Mills theory, relativistic viscous hydrodynamics in 3+1D and a hadronic molecular dynamics simulations. This is an ambitious goal, but at this point, I am one of the very few in the world who is capable of marshaling all the necessary tools. In this proposal, I propose to carry out comprehensive characterization of QGP in heavy ion collisions with all the theoretical tools I and my students can employ.

在正常的核物质中，构成质子和中子的夸克和胶子被永久限制在哈德子内部。当温度达到数万亿开尔文时，这不再是正确的。在这些极高的温度下，空间充满了热产生的辐射，以至于单个强子无法再保持其限制的完整性。实际上，普通的核物质“融化”并释放了夸克和胶子。然后，解放的夸克和胶子形成了一种新的物质状态，称为Quark-gluon等离子体（QGP）。这种极端的物质在自然界中仅在大爆炸之后大约是微秒左右。 在过去的20年中，欧洲CERN和美国布鲁克黑文国家实验室的相对论重离子船员一直在碰撞沉重的核，以创建和表征QGP。到目前为止，实验已经积累了大量证据，表明在相对论重离子碰撞中确实创造了受欢迎的QGP。但是，实验证据中发现的许多特性都是令人惊讶的。例如，有史以来创造的最热，最致密的物质也可能是有史以来观察到的最强烈的相互作用的系统之一，比超流体氦气更理想地流动！世界上许多群体对这些特性进行了深入的理论研究。但是，即使CERN的LHC开始在前所未有的高碰撞能量上积累大量的新数据，仍有许多重要的难题等待理论解决方案。 对重离子碰撞中QGP的全面理解要求多种理论武器库。这包括经典的杨利米尔理论，3+1D中的相对论粘性流体动力学和HADRONIC分子动力学模拟。这是一个雄心勃勃的目标，但是在这一点上，我是世界上少数能够宣布所有必要工具的人之一。在此提案中，我建议在我和我的学生可以使用的所有理论工具中对QGP进行全面表征。