Physics Colloquium, March 1 2005

What'sQGP? Evidence for a new form quark and gluon matter

Miklos Gyulassy

Columbia University

Billions of relatively large and long lived "drops" (t~ 10^-23 sec, R~10^-14 m) of strongly interacting quark gluon plasma (sQGP) have been created and studied at Brookhaven National Laboratory using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The high entropy of the sQGP is created through the shattering of intense nuclear chromo-electric fields, called the Color Glass Condensate. Data have revealed a number of interesting new phenomena that occur when quarks and gluons are compressed to over 100 times the density of ordinary nuclei and temperatures above the QCD deconfinement point T_c ~ 2 X 10^12 K. The most remarkable properties of this new form of matter discovered so far are its nearly perfect fluid collective behavior and its strong attenuation of energetic jets. I will present an overview of these and other recent observations at RHIC and discuss the developing theoretical framework that attempts explain them. Some of the many unsolved puzzles and the directions of future research will also be presented.

(A review of this topic with references can be found on the e-Print Archive: nucl-th/0405013)

Professor Gyulassy's Web Site

3.30 p.m., Smith Laboratory, Room 1005

Refreshments served in Smith 1094 at 3:00 p.m.