Date: December 18th
Time: 16:00
Location: A101 Conference hall, NFTMC, Saulėtekio al. 3.
About the lecture:
"As two lead nuclei collide at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, they create extreme conditions not seen since the beginning of our Universe. The collision creates a blob of matter hundreds of times denser than the nucleus of the atom and a hundred thousand times hotter than the core of a star. This new form of matter is composed of strongly interacting quarks and gluons—the fundamental building blocks of matter. Remarkably, it expands and flows like the most perfect fluid ever observed. Understanding how elementary particles can form such matter in less time than it takes light to cross a proton radius is a fascinating problem of Quantum Chromodynamics—the theory of strong nuclear force. The solution involves surprising connections to black hole physics and ultracold quantum gasses. In my talk, I will sketch our current theoretical understanding of QCD thermalisation in collisions of ultrarelativistic heavy ions."
Aleksas Mazeliauskas is a theoretical heavy-ion physicist working at the Theoretical Physics Department of CERN, Switzerland. His research focuses on complex quantum chromodynamics problems related to ultra-high energy particle collisions. He is a graduate of the University of Cambridge (UK), holds a PhD from Stony Brook University (USA), and is currently the head of the Emmy Noether Research Group at Heidelberg University. Mazeliauskas has received numerous awards for his scientific achievements.