A major focus of the scientific programs at the future Electron-Ion Collider and the upcoming upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider is the search for and study of a new state of nuclear matter known as the Color Glass Condensate (CGC). In this extreme regime, matter is dominated by an exceptionally dense system of gluons—the particles that bind quarks together inside protons and neutrons. Theoretical predictions from the CGC framework have been compared with experimental data from HERA, RHIC, and the LHC, revealing intriguing hints of this phenomenon, though definitive evidence remains elusive.

 

In this colloquium, I will provide an overview of the latest theoretical developments in CGC-based calculations and discuss how they can be tested through measurements at current and future particle colliders. I will also highlight some novel experimental observables that could shed new light on this dense gluonic state of matter. Lastly, I will briefly comment on the CGC's interdisciplinary connections with other fields of physics.

 

Bio:

Farid Salazar was born and raised in Lima, Peru. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Stony Brook University in 2021 while conducting research with the Nuclear Theory Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). Afterward, he held postdoctoral positions at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2023, he joined the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington as a Junior Fellow. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Physics at Temple University and holds a joint appointment with the RIKEN Brookhaven Research Center. His research focuses on studying the properties of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) matter in high-energy collisions with effective field theories.