The Shape and Flow of Heavy Ion Collisions (490th Brookhaven Lecture)
- BNL Physics Department
The sun can’t do it, but colossal machines like the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven Lab and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe sure can. Quarks and gluons make up protons and neutrons found in the nucleus of every atom in the universe. At heavy ion colliders like RHIC and the LHC, scientists can create matter more than 100,000 times hotter than the center of the sun—so hot that protons and neutrons melt into a plasma of quarks and gluons. The particle collisions and emerging quark-gluon plasma hold keys to understanding how these fundamental particles interact with each other, which helps explain how everything is held together—from atomic nuclei to human beings to the biggest stars—how all matter has mass, and what the universe looked like microseconds after the Big Bang. Dr. Schenke discusses theory that details the shape and structure of heavy ion collisions. He will also explain how this theory and data from experiments at RHIC and the LHC are being used to determine properties of the quark-gluon plasma.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-98CH10886
- OSTI ID:
- 1132947
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Brookhaven Lecture Series: 1960 - Present, Lecture presented at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York (United States) on Decemberl 18, 2013
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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