Ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions test the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) sector in the Standard Model of particle physics, aiming at determining the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). We are developing a simultaneous theory-study of various observables, to pin down these properties from the CERN-LHC and BNL-RHIC heavy-ion data. The modeling covers the whole nuclear collision: determination of the detailed nuclear gluon and quark structure, perturbative computation of the initial QGP production, description of the QCD matter spacetime evolution with hydrodynamics, and computation of various observables in the final state. Our calculational methods are perturbation theory of QCD, relativistic hydrodynamics, kinetic theory, and numerical Monte Carlo simulations. The project involves researcher training at all levels, and is very timely since with the ongoing LHC heavy-ion experiments the field is in a most exciting phase.

2020

2024