The
research of the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Physics (RHIP) group is focused on the study of nuclear matter at
extreme temperatures and densities, which is a new and exciting field
on the borderline between nuclear and high energy physics. At these
extreme conditions of temperature and density nuclear matter will
undergo a phase transition to a Quark-Gluon
Plasma. In this new phase nuclear matter does not any more consist
primarily of protons and neutrons, but instead of deconfined quarks and
gluons. Experimentally we are creating high temperature nuclear matter
by colliding heavy nuclei (heavy ions) at very high energies
(ultrarelativistic energies) at nuclear accelerators.
Our group
is participating in two experiments, PHENIX and ALICE. The PHENIX
experiment is at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
(RHIC) and
ALICE
is at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at European
Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
The RHIC accelerator was ready in 2000 and PHENIX
has been taken data since 2001, while ALICE started to take data in November
2010.
The permanent part of
our group consists of professors
Ken
Read and
Soren
Sorensen. We usually have one post-doc and 2-4 students
working with us. The people currently in the RHIP group can be seen on
our people page.
RHIP Information:
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