3:30–4:30 pm Maria Goeppert-Mayer Lecture Hall
QCD critical point and the predictable randomness of relativistic fluids
Quantum Chromodynamics predicts a variety of unusual states of matter in which relativity and quantum many-body physics strongly intertwine. Discovering phase transitions between these hottest and densest forms of matter in a laboratory is an unprecedented task. This is the challenge heavy-ion collision experiments are taking up in the Beam Energy Scan program at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). An intriguing open question is the existence and the location of the QCD critical point. Similar critical points are ubiquitous in earthly substances and the associated fluctuation driven phenomena are remarkably universal. Can the QCD critical point be discovered in the heavy-ion collision experiments? It is a nontrivial question in large part because of the importance of the explosive dynamics of the collision. This challenging question is a subject of current research and a major motivation for recent developments in relativistic hydrodynamics. Of particular interest in this context is the dynamics of thermal fluctuations inherent in systems with dissipation.