The Quest for Quark-Gluon Plasma — Nuclear Matter at Trillion Degree Temperatures

The Quest for Quark-Gluon Plasma — Nuclear Matter at Trillion Degree Temperatures

Prof. Sangyong Jeon (McGill U.)

Oct. 6, 2016 19:00

Abstract:

Within a microsecond after the Big Bang, the Universe was in such an extreme state that matter as we know could not yet exist. Instead, the Universe was filled with the most basic ingredients of matter (extremely hot quarks and gluons) which will eventually combine to become ordinary matter in just a second later. This fascinating state of nuclear matter - Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) - had the temperature of more than two trillion kelvin, a sand grain size of it contained enough energy to power Canada for tens of millions of years. It was denser than the neutron star core yet flowed more freely than superfluid helium. Since the beginning of this century, high-energy nuclear physics community has been hard at work to produce this primordial matter in ultra-relativistic heavy ion colliders in the USA and Europe and study it. In this talk, I will introduce QGP, how we have actually achieved trillions of kelvin temperature to produce QGP, and what wonderful physics we have learned from it.