Venue: Physics Building, Max-von-Laue-Str. 1, PHYS 02.116
Time: Thursday, February 01, 4:30pm (s.t.)
Contact: hees@itp.uni-frankfurt.de
About a microsecond after the Big Bang, the universe was in a state
called the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), in which quarks and gluons, the
basic constituents of the strong nuclear force, roamed freely. Due to
its large expansion, this plasma went through a phase transition to form
hadrons - most importantly nucleons - which constitute the building
blocks of matter as we know it today. Determining the properties of the
QGP would not only teach us about the dynamics of the early universe but
also teach us about the properties of its underlying quantum field
theory (Quantum Chromo-Dynamics) at high temperatures and densities -
domains of the theory that are currently not accessible in
first-principles calculations.
Only in the last two decades have accelerators been able to create the
conditions of temperature and density in the laboratory that are
favorable for the QGP to exist. The Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider
(RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory was built specifically to
observe and study this phase of matter, and the Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) at CERN has devoted a significant research program to this purpose
as well.
One of the most surprising discoveries to come out of QGP research is
that it behaves like a liquid with the smallest specific viscosity ever
observed in nature. This lecture will elucidate how an interdisciplinary
collaboration of experimental and theoretical physicists together with
computer scientists and statisticians has been able to tease out the
remarkable properties of this extreme liquid and how scientific advances
in Bayesian statistics and grid computing have come to bear to advance
one of the most dynamic areas of Nuclear Physics.
The colloquium will be streamed but not recorded.
Zoom link: https://uni-frankfurt.zoom.us/j/2848286010?pwd=VmtCY1RCc1hpVStKd0RibFBpc1IzZz09
Meeting ID: 284 828 6010
Password: 068695