Heavy Ion Physics at the LHC & RHIC - Recreating the Big Bang in the Laboratory Rene Bellwied (for the Bellwied/Pinsky group) University of Houston T in the universe: 3 K = -454 o F Cosmic wave background map

Matter in the Universe - a problem of galactic proportions Bullet Cluster, 3.4 Billion Lightyears from Earth X-ray image vs. gravitational lensing Cluster contents by mass: ~ 2% galaxies ~ 13% hot gas ~ 85% dark matter Dark and visible matter are close together ? Formed in same process ?

Matter in the Universe Electrons orbiting Atom nucleus Atomic nucleus quarks Neutrons & Protons 100 trillionths ( ) meter.01 trillionths ( ) meter.001 trillionths ( ) meter (also gluons!)

Strong color field Force grows with separation !!! Forces get weaker with distance…..except to study structure of an atom… “white” proton …separate constituents Imagine our understanding of atoms or QED if we could not isolate charged objects!! nucleus electron quark quark-antiquark pair created from vacuum “white” proton (confined quarks) “white”  0 (confined quarks) Confinement: fundamental & crucial (but not understood!) feature of strong force - colored objects (quarks) have  energy in normal vacuum neutral atom To understand the strong force and the phenomenon of confinement: Create and study a system of deconfined colored quarks (and gluons) F ~ 1/r 2 F ~ r

Let’s go back in time to when matter was formed – but how ? It’s -454 o F out there now It’s -454 o F out there now Assume that the universe expands homogenously and simply run the expansion backwards (compression) at a compression rate set by the Hubble constant Assume that the universe expands homogenously and simply run the expansion backwards (compression) at a compression rate set by the Hubble constant Volume goes down Pressure goes up Temperature goes up Energy goes up

Going back in time… Age Energy Matter in universe Age Energy Matter in universe GeV grand unified theory of all forces GeV grand unified theory of all forces s10 14 GeV 1 st phase transition (strong: q,g + electroweak: g, l,n) s10 2 GeV 2 nd phase transition (strong: q,g + electro: g + weak: l,n) s0.2 GeV 3 rd phase transition protons/neutrons (strong:hadrons + electro:g + weak: l,n) 3 min.0.1 MeV nuclei 6*10 5 years0.3 eV atoms Now 3*10 -4 eV = 3 K (13.7 billion years) RHIC & LHC FRIB & FAIR phases of matter form whenever energy is low enough for them to survive The first second of the universe

The R elativistic H eavy I on C ollider RHIC BRAHMS PHOBOS PHENIX STAR AGS TANDEMS 3.8 km circle v =  speed of light Gold nuclei each with 197 protons + neutrons are accelerated Beams cross the experimental area 100,000 times each second !

ea The Experiment STAR ~ 550 collaborators 48 institutions 10 countries ~100 grad. students Cost for RHIC: ~ $550 Million Cost for STAR: ~ $50 Million Took 10 years to build Completed in 2000

First beam in 2009 Heavy ions in 2010 Geneva with Large Hadron Collider Superimposed Speed: % 1100 collaborators, 200 graduate students

Study all phases of a heavy ion collision If the QGP was formed, it will only live for s !!!! BUT does matter come out of this phase the same way it went in ???

So what do we hope for ? 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. 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 went in ?’ b.) How do the particles (ordinary matter) form ? How do they attain their mass ? c.) Does Dark Matter form at the same time ? d.) Do Black Holes form ? Are they related to Dark Matter or Dark Energy ? e.) Does matter separate from anti-matter ?

An example: Probing the medium with fast particles p p ? Au+Au idea: use p+p collisions (no medium) as reference ?: what happens in Au+Au to particles which pass through medium? Prediction: density in fireball is so high that particles get stuck. Measure properties of medium from the interaction of particles with medium.

STAR, nucl-ex/ energy loss pQCD + Shadowing + Cronin pQCD + Shadowing + Cronin + Energy Loss High momentum particles get stuck ! The system is very dense. Too dense to be made of protons and neutrons ! SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE MADE OF QUARKS & GLUONS The deposited energy density is enormous, at least 5 GeV/fm 3

Lessons from RHIC: The Quark Soup AIP Science Story of 2006 The early universe behaves like a perfect liquid not like a gas or plasma 400 times less viscous than water, 10 times less viscous than superfluid helium !

Lessons from RHIC: The Anti-Matter Factory AIP Science Story of 2011 Antimatter forms molecules just like matter Discovery of Anti-Helium-4 (Nature 473, 353 (2011))

collision evolution particle detectors collision overlap zone QGP phase quark and gluon degrees of freedom  ~ 10 fm/c hadronization kinetic freeze-out lumpy initial energy density  0 ~1 fm/c  ~ 0 fm/c distributions and correlations of produced particles quantum fluctuations Heavy-ion Collisions: Rapid Expansion expansion and cooling The Universe: Slow Expansion credit: NASA Where are we going ? Collectivity causes correlations Can the structures in the Quark Soup explain galaxies ? particle distribution in  and 

Our team Professors: Anthony Timmins, Larry Pinsky, Rene Bellwied Postdocs: Francesco Blanco, Michael Weber Students: Chanaka DeSilva, Badrajee Piyarathna, Sandun Jayarathna Talk to us: Suite 406, 4th floor, SR1 Building Call us: us: