ADVANCE Fellows Award: Multiple Scattering in QCD and Medium Effects in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

这项工作探索了在纽约布鲁克海文国家实验室新建的相对论重离子对撞机(RHIC)和瑞士欧洲核子研究中心(CERN)未来的大型强子对撞机(LHC)上，在相对论重离子碰撞中产生的强相互作用力的动力学以及热和稠密物质的性质。通过在极端能量下碰撞重离子，创造了具有足够温度的介观区域，为产生夸克胶子等离子体(QGP)创造了有利条件，夸克胶子等离子体是一种物质状态，存在于我们宇宙的最初几微秒内。通过研究QGP及其如何创建、冷却和膨胀，我们可以获得对早期宇宙的新见解，以及物质的最基本成分与组成我们今天周围世界的复杂粒子和原子核阵列之间的关系。本文主要研究致密核物质中的粒子多次散射问题。利用量子色动力学(QCD)这一公认的强相互作用力理论，计算了各种粒子谱和粒子-粒子关联。由此产生的预测可以与在RHIC和LHC的观测进行比较。测量这样的光谱和关联将有助于实验者发现QGP，并使我们能够研究它的性质。在这一奖学金的支持下，首席研究员还在爱荷华州立大学物理和天文学系从事本科生和研究生教学工作，在那里她为女学生树立了榜样和导师，从而鼓励年轻女性参与科学。

This work explores the dynamics of the Strong Interaction Force and the properties of hot and dense matter produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions at the newly built Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab in New York and the future Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Switzerland. By colliding heavy ions at extreme energies, mesoscopic regions of sufficient temperature are created with conditions favorable for creating quark gluon plasma (QGP), a state of matter that existed during the first few microseconds of our universe. By studying the QGP and how it was created, cools and expands, we can gain new insights into the early universe and the relationship between the most fundamental constituents of matter and the complex array of particles and nuclei that make up the world around us today. The research focuses on particle multiple scattering in dense nuclear matter. In terms of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), an accepted theory for the strong interaction force, various particle spectra and particle-particle correlations are calculated. The resulting predictions can be compared with observations at RHIC and LHC. Measuring such spectra and correlations will help experimentalists to discover the QGP and enable us to study its properties. With support from this Fellows award, the Principal Investigator also engages in undergraduate and graduate teaching in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University, where she serves as a role model and mentor for women students, and thus encourages young women to participate in science.