The 'Little Bang’ in the Laboratory - Physics at the LHC Christina Markert Big Bang Quarks and Strong Interaction Heavy Ion Collisions ‘Little Bang’ Our Heavy Ion Group at UT Austin Conclusions Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

1.Can we produce anti matter here on earth ? Questions 1.Can we produce anti matter here on earth ? 2.Can we create matter out of energy ? 3.Is the proton the smallest building block of nuclear matter ? 4.Can we accelerate particles up to nearly the speed of light ? 5.Can we observe a single quark ? Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Our basic Questions are: What is matter made of ? How does matter organize itself & stay together? How does matter behave? Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Space Time Diagram of the Early Universe crystal molecule atom nuclei proton Expansion: Temperature decrease Density decreases Volume expands It takes time More structure quarks Universe is 13*109 Years old The Cosmic Timeline Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

What do we know about the smallest building blocks? Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Quarks in a Neutron or Proton = Mass Theory of strong force: Quantum Chromo Dynamics Quarks are the smallest building blocks of massive matter Based on quark interactions (5+10+10 ≠ 935 MeV/c2) ? Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Analogies and differences between QED and QCD to study structure of an atom… electron …separate constituents nucleus QED Quantum Electro Dynamics neutral atom Confinement: fundamental & crucial (but not understood!) feature of strong force - colored objects (quarks) have  energy in normal vacuum quark-antiquark pair created from vacuum quarks u,d, (s,c,t,b) quark Strong color field Force grows with separation !!! “white” 0 (meson) (confined quarks) “white” proton (baryon) (confined quarks) “white” proton QCD Quantum Chromo Dymanics Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Generating a deconfined state Present understanding of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) heating compression  deconfined matter ! Quark Gluon Plasma deconfined ! Hadronic Matter (confined) Nuclear Matter (confined) Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Going back in time… Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Quark Gluon Plasma is another phase of matter! Phase Transitions ICE WATER Add heat Quark Gluon Plasma is another phase of matter! Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Phase Diagram We heat up the system Pressure Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Create Quark Gluon Plasma Hadrons Quark Gluon Plasma q q Compress and Add heat T = 1,000,000,000,000 K Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Phase Diagram of Nuclear Matter Temperature hadrons quarks and gluons hadrons LHC QGP RHIC Tc Center of mass energies: for different accelerators AGS: √s ~ 5 GeV SPS : √s ~ 17 GeV RHIC: √s ~ 200 GeV LHC: √s ~ 5500 GeV SPS AGS Baryochemical potential  Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Phase transition of nuclear matter predicted Gross, Politzer, Wilczek win 2004 Nobel Prize in physics for the theory of asymptotic freedom in strong interaction. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was built to measure the phase transition of nuclear matter to an ‘asymptotically free’ partonic state (deconfined) under the condition of maximum particle and energy density. (after Big Bang ?) Wilczek Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

What can we do in the laboratory ? a.) Re-create the conditions as close as possible to the Big Bang, i.e. a condition of maximum density and minimum volume in an expanding macroscopic system. b.) Measure a phase transition, characterize the new phase, measure the de-excitation of the new phase into ‘ordinary’ matter – ‘do we come out the way we went in ?’ c.) Learn about hadronization  how matter is formed (mechanism how quarks from hadrons protons, neutrons, etc…) Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

How do we do heavy ion collisions in laboratory ? We take an atom (Au) We take away the electrons  ion We accelerate the ion We collide the ions and hopefully create the predicted quark gluon plasma in our ‘little bang’ (Au+Au) Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN 27 km Pb+Pb @ sNN= 7 TeV v= 99.999999%c Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011 150 meters beneath the ground

Heavy Ion Physics at the LHC Check the blog (http://uslhc.us)

US ALICE – 13 Institutions 57 members (inc. 12+ grad. students) ALICE Collaboration ~ 1000 Members (63% - CERN States) ~ 30 Countries ~ 100 Institutes US ALICE – 13 Institutions 57 members (inc. 12+ grad. students) Cal. St. U. – San Luis Obispo, Chicago St. University, Creighton University, University of Houston, Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab, Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab, Oak Ridge Nat. Lab, Ohio State University, Purdue University, University of Tennessee, University of Texas at Austin, Wayne State University, Yale University John Harris (Yale) for ALICE Collaboration 19 Winter Workshop, Winter Park CO, 6 – 12 Feb 2011

most fundamental questions ALICE : A window to the most fundamental questions

ALICE experiment at LHCcollider (~1000 member) Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Study all phases of a heavy ion collision If the QGP was formed, it will only live for 10-21 s !!!! Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

ALICE Experiment at the LHC Collider Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Particle Tracks in the Detector Head-on collision ~5000 charged hadrons (protons,…) and leptons (electrons,..) Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

What can we measure ? a.) Which particles are produced ? b.) How many are produced ? c.) How are they arranged (angle) d.) What does the theory tell us? Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Heat and Compress Nuclear Matter - We produce new quark-antiquark pairs: u u Producing new matter out of Energy Producing new quarks s,c,t,b which don’t exist in ground state nuclear matter (neutrons+protons) System expands new particles are produced: Protons (uud) , anti-protons (uud) antimatter) Lambdas (uds) - - - Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Questions we can answer Quark Gluon Plasma: Initial Temperature Density Viscosity Equilibration time Lifetime Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Resonance Reconstruction in TPC  (1520) K- p End view TPC 1/v  p = mv (classical) p relativistic momentum - Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Finding Hadronic Resonance Particles Undergraduate students in my group Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

Conclusions Data show evidence that we created a Quark Gluon Plasma We have a phase transition proton -> quarks Quark-gluon plasma lasts less than 0.00000000000000000000001 seconds It is very dense and very hot It behaves like a liquid not like a plasma New experiment at larger Collider LHC at CERN to investigate properties of the ‘Quark Soup’ http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/05/the_lhc_black_holes_and_you.php Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

1.Can we produce anti matter here on earth ? Questions 1.Can we produce anti matter here on earth ? 2.Can we create matter out of energy ? 3.Is the proton the smallest building block of nuclear matter ? 4.Can we accelerate particles up to nearly the speed of light ? 5.Can we observe a single quark ? Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011

1.Can we produce anti matter here on earth ? Yes Questions 1.Can we produce anti matter here on earth ? Yes 2.Can we create matter out of energy ? Yes 3.Is the proton the smallest building block of nuclear matter ? No (quark) 4.Can we accelerate particles up to nearly the speed of light ? Yes 5.Can we observe a single quark ? No Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin April 2 2011