IIHE invited seminar: Probing extreme QCD through ridge-like correlations at high energy colliders
by
Prof.Raju Venugopalan(Brookhaven National Laboratory / University of Heidelberg)
→
Europe/Brussels
Jean Sacton Seminar room (1G003) (IIHE, VUB)
Jean Sacton Seminar room (1G003)
IIHE, VUB
Description
Abstract: A surprising discovery at the LHC was existence of azimuthally collimated (``ridge") long range rapidity correlations in high multiplicity p+p collisions. Previously such correlations were only seen in heavy ion collisions at RHIC, and were seen as reflecting the hydrodynamic flow of a nearly perfect quark-gluon plasma. Subsequently, such ridges have also been seen in p+A collisions at the LHC, and in light-heavy ion collisions at RHIC. Do these results suggest that systems on the size of a few fermi can form the worlds smallest fluids ? Or is the result due to quantum correlations already present in the wave functions of the colliding hadrons? We discuss how the data from RHIC and LHC bring to the fore fascinating questions regarding quantum versus classical and non-equilibrium versus equilibrium dynamics in the framework of quantum chromodynamics.
