Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Transfer Request from Rutgers University to University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1770316· OSTI ID:1770316
 [1]
  1. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States); University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Shortly after the Big Bang the entire universe was filled with a nearly perfect fluid known as the Quark Gluon Plasma. Relativistic heavy ion collisions can now reproduce this fluid in the laboratory where the Quark Gluon Plasma exhibits a rapid but smooth cross-over phase transition into hadrons at vanishing net-baryon densities. Recent experiments plan to explore finite baryon densities where a critical point is expected. If found, this would mark the first discovery of a critical point in a relativistic system described by a fundamental theory of nature, which would have far reaching consequences for high-energy nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics (such as in neutron star mergers). Characteristic temperatures of equilibrium (e.g. the inflection point of the entropy density) and transport coefficients (e.g. minimum of the shear viscosity over entropy density) vary widely at a cross-over phase transition but converge at a critical point, and extracting the behavior of these characteristic temperatures is a major focal point of this research. Specifically, the interplay between strange and light hadrons will be exploited to study the flavor hierarchy in the cross-over region. To investigate this, a viscous relativistic hydrodynamics framework with two conserved charges must be developed into a new open-source code along with initial conditions that contain baryon number and strangeness. Flow observables sensitive to the equation of state and transport coefficients will be calculated across beam energies. New techniques will be developed to study this flavor hierarchy from first principles and to extract the characteristic temperatures from experimental data. Through this new dynamical framework, this project will provide essential guidance to the upcoming Beam Energy Scan II runs at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider and the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research facility in the search for the Quantum Chromodynamic critical point and subsequent investigation of the baryon-rich Quark Gluon Plasma.

Research Organization:
Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
DOE Contract Number:
SC0019175
OSTI ID:
1770316
Report Number(s):
DOE-RUTGERS--SC0019175
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Dynamical Aspects of the Quark Gluon Plasma
Technical Report · Tue Jan 30 23:00:00 EST 2024 · OSTI ID:2283321

Role of strangeness in the hadronization of the quark-gluon plasma
Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1986 · OSTI ID:5466547

PROCEEDINGS OF RIKIN BNL RESEARCH CENTER WORKSHOP - VOLUME 79
Conference · Wed Feb 15 23:00:00 EST 2006 · OSTI ID:922984