The study of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions

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My research program aims to study strongly-interacting systems, in condition of extreme temperatures and/or densities. More specifically, in such exotic environment, the theory of the strong nuclear interaction - QCD - predicts the formation of an exotic state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). My program seeks  to provide quantitative characterization of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), which is  now observed at two major accelerator facilities: RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Brookhaven National Laboratory), and at the LHC (the Large hadron Collider, CERN). Colliding large nuclei at relativistic energies is the only practical way to produce and study hot and dense strongly interacting matter in terrestrial laboratories. The program seeks to elucidate the bulk properties of QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) in and out of equilibrium. Its short term goals involve complementary aspects. One of them concerns soft hadronic probes and their connection to the determination of transport coefficients of QCD, which in turn regulate and quantify departures from equilibrium. For example, we seek to isolate the shear and bulk viscosity coefficients of QCD,  with their temperature-dependence, and also how the baryon number gets transported in this medium.  Another aspect concerns penetrating probes, as we aim to understand and predict the emission of real and virtual photons from the QGP. These carry important information on the early-time dynamics of the nuclear collision, and can - with the help of a realistic time-evolution scenario - act literally as thermometers and as viscometers for the different phases of QCD spanned by the collision dynamics. In a related inquiry, we want to understand what information about the nuclear equation state is implied in our understanding and observations  of neutron star structure and cooling. We will draw parallels between probing extreme states of matter in terrestrial laboratories and in the cosmos. The program involves different aspects of field theories at finite temperatures and densities, and of advanced numerical modelling.