High-energy nuclear collisions and QFT in extreme conditions

Our research aims at understanding fundamental interactions between elementary particles under high temperature, high density, or with strong external fields based on quantum field theory. In particular, our research is in connection to the experiments of relativistic heavy ion collisions, where a deconfined state of quarks and gluons at high temperature is formed, known as the quark gluon plasma (QGP). Among plenty of interesting topics in QGP, we recently focus on the study of quantum transport phenomena pertinent to chirality and spin of quarks and gluons. These effects, mostly triggered by strong (color) electromagnetic fields or vorticity, may originate from the chiral anomaly that quantum mechanically violates the parity symmetry and from spin-orbit interaction. Our goal is to figure out how the charge transport and spin polarization are intertwined and dynamically evolve through the aforementioned quantum effects in QGP or the pre-equilibrium phase in heavy ion collisions. Moreover, we are also interested in how the chiral effects can affect astrophysical phenomena such as lepton transport in core-collapse supernovae.    

Researchers : Di-Lun Yang, Avdhesh Kumar, Geraint Evans