1. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 1 Christina Markert The ‘Little Bang in the Laboratory’ – Accelorator Physics. Big Bang Quarks and Strong Interaction Heavy Ion Collisions ‘Little Bang’ Our Heavy Ion Group at UT Austin Conclusions

2. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 2 Our basic Questions are: What is matter made of ? How does matter organize itself & stay together? How does matter behave?

3. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 3 Space Time Diagram of the Early Universe The Cosmic Timeline proton atom molecule crystal quarks nuclei Expansion: Temperature decrease Density decreases Volume expands It takes time More structure Universe is 13*10 9 Years old

4. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 4 What do we know about the smallest building blocks?

5. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 5 Quarks in a Neutron or Proton = Mass Theory: Quantum Chromo Dynamics Quarks are the smallest building blocks of massive matter

6. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 6 Strong color field Force grows with separation !!! Analogies and differences between QED and QCD to study structure of an atom… “white” proton …separate constituents nucleus electron quark quark-antiquark pair created from vacuum “white” proton (baryon) (confined quarks) “white”  0 (meson) (confined quarks) Confinement: fundamental & crucial (but not understood!) feature of strong force - colored objects (quarks) have  energy in normal vacuum neutral atom quarks u,d, (s,c,t,b) QED Quantum Electro Dynamics QCD Quantum Chromo Dymanics

7. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 7 Generating a deconfined state Nuclear Matter (confined) Hadronic Matter (confined) Quark Gluon Plasma deconfined ! Present understanding of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) heating compression  deconfined matter !

8. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 8 Going back in time…

9. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 9 Phase Transitions ICE WATER Add heat Quark Gluon Plasma is another phase of matter!

10. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 10 Phase Diagram Pressure We heat up the system

11. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 11 Create Quark Gluon Plasma q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q Compress and Add heat Hadrons Quark Gluon Plasma T = 1,000,000,000,000 K

12. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 12 Phase Diagram of Nuclear Matter SPS AGS RHIC Temperature ~150 MeV LHC Center of mass energies: for different accelerators AGS: √s ~ 5 GeV SPS : √s ~ 17 GeV RHIC: √s ~ 200 GeV LHC: √s ~ 5500 GeV q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q hadrons quarks and gluons hadrons Pressure

13. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 13 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

14. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 14 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…)

15. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 15 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)

16. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 16 RHIC BRAHMS PHOBOS PHENIX STAR AGS TANDEMS Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) 1 mile v = 0.99995  c Au+Au @  s NN =200 GeV

17. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 17 STAR experiment at RHIC collider

18. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 18 Study all phases of a heavy ion collision If the Quark Gluon Plasma was formed, it will only live for 10 -23 s !!!! Nuclei are so thin because of velocity = nearly speed of light

19. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 19 Space Time Diagram of the Early Universe The Cosmic Timeline proton atom molecule crystal quarks nuclei Expansion: Temperature decrease Density decreases Volume expands More structure Takes time atoms 6*10 5 years

20. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 20 Heat and Compress Nuclear Matter We produce new quark-antiquark pairs:  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 (antimatter) Lambdas (uds)

21. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 21 STAR Experiment at the RHIC Collider

22. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 22 Particle Tracks in the Detector Head-on Au+Au collision ~1500 charged hadrons (protons,…) and leptons (electrons,..)

23. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 23 a.) Which particles are produced ? b.) How many are produced ? c.) How are they arranged (angle) d.) What does the theory tell us? What can we measure ?

24. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 24 Resonance Reconstruction in STAR TPC Energy loss in TPC dE/dx momentum [GeV/c] Energy loss dE/dx p K  e -- p   (1520) K-p End view STAR TPC Identify decay candidates (p, dedx, E) Calculate invariant mass

25. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 25 Time of Flight Detector Our Group at UT Austin

26. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 26 Conclusion  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’  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’

27. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 27 The world takes notice !

28. Christina Markert Physics Workshop UT Austin November 11 2006 28 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