Related papers: From Cosmic Matter to the Laboratory
It has been theorized that if heavy nuclei (e.g. Au, Pb) are collided at sufficiently high energies, we might be to recreate the conditions that existed in the universe a few microseconds after the Big Bang. The kinetic energy of the…
Collisions of heavy ions (nuclei) at ultra-relativistic energies (sqrt(s_NN) >> 10 GeV per nucleon-nucleon collision in the centre of mass system) are regarded as a unique tool to produce in the laboratory a high energy density and high…
The density in the core of neutron stars can reach values of about 5 to 10 times nuclear matter saturation density. It is, therefore, a natural assumption that hadrons may have dissolved into quarks under such conditions, forming a hybrid…
The measurements at RHIC have revealed a new state of matter, which needs to be further characterized in order to better understand its implications for the early evolution of the universe and QCD. I will show that, in the near future,…
Gravity compresses the matter in the cores of neutron stars to densities which are significantly higher than the density of ordinary atomic nuclei, thus providing a high-pressure environment in which numerous particle processes - from the…
Two major aspects of strange particle physics at the upcoming FAIR and NICA facilities and the RHIC low energy scan will be discussed. A new distinct production mechanism for hypernuclei will be presented, namely the production abundances…
We highlight the STAR experiment's recent measurements on electromagnetic and hard probes of nuclear collisions, which inform the field's understanding of these physical phenomena and by extension QCD. Results on vector meson production…
QCD predicts a phase transition between hadronic matter and a Quark Gluon Plasma at high energy density. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is a new facility dedicated to the experimental study of…
A fundamental question of physics is what ultimately happens to matter as it is heated or compressed. In the realm of very high temperature and density the fundamental degrees of freedom of the strong interaction, quarks and gluons, come…
A new dynamic is identified between dark matter and nuclei. Nuclei accelerated to MeV energies by the internal potential of composite dark matter can undergo nuclear fusion. This effect arises in simple models of composite dark matter made…
Lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD), defined on a discrete space time lattice, leads to a spectacular non-perturbative prediction of a new state of matter, called quark-gluon plasma (QGP), at sufficiently high temperatures or equivalently…
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) studies nuclear matter under a variety of conditions. Cold nuclear matter is probed with deuteron-gold collisions, while hot nuclear matter(possibly a quark-gluon plasma (QGP)) is created in…
The nuclear matter equation of state is relatively well constrained at sub-saturation densities thanks to the knowledge from nuclear physics. However, studying its behavior at supra-saturation densities is a challenging task. Fortunately,…
Recent theory progresses in (3+1)D dynamical descriptions of relativistic nuclear collisions at finite baryon density are reviewed. Heavy-ion collisions at different collision energies produce strongly coupled nuclear matter to probe the…
The end state of binary-neutron-star (BNS) mergers can manifest conditions to produce high-energy neutrinos. Inspired by the event GW170817, detected in gravitational waves and in optical/infrared emission, we investigate a scenario in…
Does deconfined cold quark matter occur in nature? This is currently one of the fundamental open questions in nuclear astrophysics. In these proceedings, I review the current state-of-the-art techniques to address this question in a…
In the initial years of operation, experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have identified a new form of matter formed in nuclei-nuclei collisions at energy densities more than 100 times that of a cold atomic nucleus.…
The project of the international Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), co-located to the GSI facility in Darmstadt, has been officially started on November 7, 2007. The current plans of the facility and the planned research…
A high baryon density and strong magnetic fields are expected in peripheral collisions in heavy ion collision experiments, such as the upcoming CBM experiment at FAIR in Germany and NICA in Russia. Such densities are also likely in the core…
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL has been exploring the energy frontier of nuclear physics since 2001. Its performance, flexibility and continued innovative upgrading can sustain its physics output for years to come. Now, the…