CAREER: New States of Strongly Interacting Matter in Heavy Ion Collisions

探索物质的新状态是一项基本任务。标准模型的强相互作用部分被量子色动力学（QCD）描述为夸克和胶子的量子场论。这种夸克和胶子深深局限在正常物质中。然而，当普通物质被加热到足够高的温度时，它就会变成一种由夸克和胶子直接组成的新定义形式的QCD物质。这种夸克-胶子等离子体（QGP）在“大爆炸”后的几微秒内短暂地占据了宇宙，现在在实验室里通过重离子碰撞（“小爆炸”）被（重新）创造为有史以来最热的物质。它的性质是在相对论重离子对撞机（RHIC）和大型强子对撞机（LHC）上测量的。理论和实验研究表明，在重离子碰撞中产生的夸克-胶子物质在达到热平衡之前和之后都是强相互作用的。确切地说，这种强烈的相互作用性质是如何从基本的QCD理论中出现在多体环境中的，是一个缺乏深入理解的具有挑战性的问题。该项目将调查这一缺失的环节，并寻求对平衡内外的问题进行有效的描述。研究结果将促进我们对QCD约束的理解，为射流淬火机理提供新的见解，在寻找QCD拓扑效应方面取得重大进展，并减少预热阶段存在的不确定性。预期的结果将有助于我们理解一些基本问题，如“色约束现象是如何产生的”，以及“实验观察到的夸克-胶子物质在平衡状态和平衡状态下是如何从QCD中出现的”。该奖项支持的研究涉及探索极端条件下强相互作用物质的新形式。这些活动体现了重要的跨学科方面，因为它们有望对物理学的其他领域产生深远的影响，从宇宙学，超新星，致密恒星，到超对称理论，弦理论以及凝聚态物理。该项目通过研究生和本科生的指导，将研究与教育相结合。该项目将积极推行一项为期五年的教育推广计划，为电脑桌面和移动设备开发教育软件，利用可视化和模拟，以互动、引人入胜和儿童友好的方式展示与“极端物质物理学”相关的概念。

Exploring new states of matter is a fundamental quest. The strong interaction sector of the Standard Model is described by the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) as a quantum field theory of quarks and gluons. Such quarks and gluons are deeply confined in normal matter. However when normal matter is heated to a high enough temperature, it changes into a new deconfined form of QCD matter directly made of the quarks and gluons. Such a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) briefly occupied the Universe at about a few microseconds after the "Big Bang", and has now been (re-)created as the hottest matter ever in laboratory by heavy ion collisions ("Little Bang"). Its properties are measured at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) as well as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Theoretical and experimental studies have suggested that the quark-gluon matter created in heavy ion collisions is strongly-interacting both prior to and after reaching thermal equilibrium. Exactly how such strongly interacting nature arises in the many-body setting from the fundamental QCD theory, is a challenging problem that lacks a deep understanding. This project will investigate this missing link and seek to develop effective descriptions of the matter both in and out of equilibrium. The results will advance our understanding of QCD confinement, provide fresh insights into jet quenching mechanism, make significant progress in search of QCD topological effects, and reduce existing uncertainties on the pre-thermal stage. The expected outcome will contribute to our understanding of fundamental questions such as "how the color confinement phenomenon arises", and "how the experimentally observed properties of the quark-gluon matter in and out of equilibrium emerge from QCD".The study supported by this award concerns the exploration of new forms of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions. These activities embody important interdisciplinary aspects, as they are expected to have a profound impact on other areas of physics, ranging from cosmology, supernova, compact stars, to supersymmetric theories, string theories as well as condensed matter physics. This project integrates research with education through mentoring of graduate, as well as undergraduate students. This project will actively pursue a five-year educational outreach plan to develop educational software for computer desktops and mobile devices that utilizes visualization and simulations to demonstrate concepts related to the "Physics of Extreme Matter" in an interactive, engaging, and children-friendly manner.