Research in High Energy Theoretical Physics

该奖项资助犹他大学卡尔顿·迪塔尔教授的研究活动。在过去的几十年里，随着计算能力的快速增长和计算机算法的同样重要的改进，物理学家现在能够在高性能计算的帮助下，高精度地解决量子色动力学（QCD），夸克和胶子相互作用的理论。正如欧洲的大型强子对撞机（LHC）正在推进能量前沿一样，这种能力已经彻底改变了理论高能物理的这一分支领域，并将此类研究带到了精密前沿。在这个研究项目中，DeTar教授和学生将使用计算机模拟来提取基本相互作用标准模型中迄今为止最精确的关键常数值。获得的结果对于分析国家加速器实验室和大型强子对撞机的实验测量以及测试标准模型的内部一致性至关重要。DeTar教授和他的学生还将继续研究受限物质与夸克-胶子等离子体之间的高温相变，并研究等离子体的粲夸克含量。这种新型等离子体出现在早期宇宙的演化过程中，并已被证明是在布鲁克海文国家实验室的RHIC加速器和大型强子对撞机的重离子碰撞中产生的。这项研究也有更广泛的影响。有价值的数据文件和有效的代码被广泛传播，并被世界各地的其他研究人员使用。研究生不仅要接受物理方面的训练，还要学习使用高性能计算机解决一般问题的最先进方法。研究成果也会体现在本科生和研究生的课堂教学中。最后，这项研究活动增强了犹他大学的本地计算基础设施和专业知识。

This award funds the research activities of Professor Carleton DeTar at the University of Utah.With the rapid growth of computing power over the past couple of decades and equally important improvements in computer algorithms, physicists are now able, with the aid of high-performance computing, to solve quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of interacting quarks and gluons, to high precision. This capability has revolutionized this subfield of theoretical high energy physics and brought such studies to the precision frontier, just as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe is advancing the energy frontier. In this research project, Professor DeTar and students will be using computer simulations to extract the most precise values to date of key constants in the Standard Model of the fundamental interactions. The results to be obtained will be essential for analyzing experimental measurements at national accelerator laboratories and at the LHC, as well as for testing the internal consistency of the Standard Model. Professor DeTar and his students will also continue studies of the high-temperature phase transition between confined matter and the quark-gluon plasma, and they will study the charm quark content of the plasma. This novel plasma occurred in the evolution of the early universe and has been shown to be produced in the laboratory in collisions of heavy ions at the RHIC accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory and at the LHC.This research also has broader impacts. Valuable data files and effective codes are disseminated widely and used by other researchers throughout the world. Graduate students are trained, not only in physics, but also in state-of-the-art methods for solving general problems using high-performance computers. Research results also figure into classroom instruction, both undergraduate and graduate. Finally, this research activity enhances the local computing infrastructure and expertise at the University of Utah.