U.S.-Korea Cooperative Research: Charmonium Cross Sections in Heavy Ion Collisions

该奖项支持田纳西大学的Ted Barnes教授、橡树岭国家实验室的Cheuk-Yin Wong博士和一名美国研究生在核物理领域的国际研究合作。他们正在与韩国首尔延世大学的Su Houng Lee和Yongseok Oh教授合作。他们专注于获得重离子碰撞中重夸克束缚态（“夸克-胶子等离子体”）产生横截面的第一性原理。这将使他们能够测试关于重离子碰撞产生的高能量密度物质的约束的想法。人们对重夸克束缚态的产生知之甚少。它们出现在高能核物理学和粒子物理学中。合作者正在使用几种不同的理论模型来解决这个理论问题。这种强有力的合作依赖于美韩两国在核理论和强子模型方面的互补专业知识。随着在BNL的相对论重离子对撞机（RHIC）的出现，核物理学界已经开始探索强相互作用物质物理学的高密度和高温的新前沿。一个特别令人兴奋的预测是，如果能达到并保持足够高的能量密度和温度，一种新的物质状态——“夸克-胶子等离子体”（QGP）将在中心重离子碰撞中形成。在这个领域中出现的一个关键问题是“QGP签名”的识别，即确认确实产生了QGP的观察结果。这项合作研究解决了重离子碰撞产生的一些额外的“特征”，这些“特征”会混淆对真正QGP特征的识别。本研究解决了核物理中夸克-胶子等离子体现象研究中的一个非常重要的问题。它加强了美国和韩国两个非常强大的研究团队之间的联系，这两个团队拥有互补的专业知识。它还加强了对基础物理前沿领域年轻理论家的培训，这对保持该领域的强大至关重要。

0327497BarnesThis award supports international research collaboration in nuclear physics by Professor Ted Barnes of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Cheuk-Yin Wong of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a US graduate student. They are working with a Profesors Su Houng Lee and Yongseok Oh of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. They are focusing on getting first principles understanding of the production cross sections of heavy quark bound states("Quark-Gluon Plasmas") in heavy ion collisions. This will enable them to test ideas about confinement in the high energy density matter produced in heavy ion collisions. There is very little known about the production of heavy quark bound states. They occur in both high-energy nuclear physics and particle physics. The collaborators are addressing this theoretical problem using several different theoretical models. The strongly collaborative effort depends on complementary expertise in the US and Korean groups in nuclear theory and hadronic models.With the advent of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL, the nuclear physics community has begun the exploration of a new frontier of high densities and temperatures in the physics of strongly- interacting matter. One especially exciting prediction is that a new state of matter, the "quark-gluon plasma" (QGP), should be formed in central heavy-ion collisions, provided that sufficiently high energy densities and temperatures are reached and maintained. A crucial problem that has arisen in this field is the identification of "QGP signatures", that is, observations that will confirm that a QGP was indeed produced. This collaborative research addresses some of the additional "signatures" produced by heavy ion collisions that would confound the identification of true QGP signatures.Broader ImpactsThis research addresses a very important issue in the study of the Quark-Gluon Plasma phenomenon in nuclear physics. It strengthens the links between two very strong research groups in the US and Korea that have complementary expertise. It also enhances the training of young theorists in a frontier area of fundamental physics, which is important to keep the field strong..