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: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=617788
• 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地限制在强子内部。当温度达到数万亿开尔文时，这种情况就不再正确了。在如此极高的温度下，太空中充满了热产生的强子，以至于单个强子无法再保持其约束的完整性。实际上，普通核物质“熔化”并释放夸克和胶子。释放的夸克和胶子然后形成一种新的物质状态，称为夸克-胶子等离子体（QGP）。这种极端的物质状态在自然界中仅存在约大爆炸后的微秒。在过去的二十年里，欧洲核子研究中心和美国布鲁克海文国家实验室的相对论性重离子对撞机一直在碰撞重核到目前为止，实验已经积累了大量证据，表明广受追捧的 QGP 确实是在相对论性重离子碰撞中产生的，然而，实验证据中发现的许多特性却非常令人惊讶。例如，这种有史以来最热、最稠密的物质也可能是迄今为止观察到的相互作用最强烈的系统之一，其流动性比超流体氦更理想！世界上许多研究小组都对这些特性进行了深入的理论研究。还有很多尽管欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机开始以前所未有的高碰撞能量积累大量新数据，但仍有一些重要的难题有待理论解决。全面了解重离子碰撞中的 QGP 需要大量的理论库。这包括经典的杨-米尔斯理论、3+1D 中的相对论粘性流体动力学和强子分子动力学模拟。这是一个雄心勃勃的目标，但目前，我是世界上极少数有能力整合所有必要工具的人之一。在本提案中，我建议利用我和我的学生可以使用的所有理论工具，对重离子碰撞中的 QGP 进行全面表征。