The glue that binds us all: lifting the veil on emergent universal dynamics in nature's strong force at high energies
October 22, 2019 - 8:50am
Speaker:
Dr. Raju Venugopalan
Institution:
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Massless gluons are responsible for nearly all of the mass of the visible universe. After a brief survey of their remarkable
properties, we outline how gluon matter at high energies can be described by a strongly correlated many-body theory with universal dynamics
that bears striking parallels to systems in statistical mechanics and to a memory effect carried by gravitational waves. When heavy nuclei collide at ultra relativistic energies,
Weibel-like instabilities drive the matter to decohere and flow to a nonthermal fixed point before forming a perfect fluid on parametrically long time scales.
This nonthermal fixed point of the hottest terrestrial fluid (T= trillion Kelvin) is universal and can be quantum simulated by cold atomic gases (T=nano Kelvin).
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