Speaker: Prof. Anthony Timmins, University of Houston, Texas

Title: 10+ years of Heavy-Ion Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

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Abstract:

The ALICE experiment was proposed in 1993, to study strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities via a comprehensive investigation of nuclear collisions at the LHC. Its physics program initially focused on the determination of the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a deconfined state of quarks and gluons. It is speculated that the early Universe existed in such a state micro seconds after the Big Bang. The physics program was extended along the years to cover a diverse ensemble of observables related to Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of strong interactions. The experiment has studied Pb-Pb, Xe-Xe, p-Pb and pp collisions in the multi-TeV energy range, during the Run 1 and Run 2 data taking periods at the LHC (2009-2018). The ALICE collaboration has just released a review article, that documents its major findings during this period. I will present a summary of this article.

Bio
Dr. Anthony Timmins is a proud Wayne State Alumni. He attained his PhD in 2008 from the University of Birmingham, (UK). His thesis topic centered around studies of strangeness enhancement in Cu+Cu collisions at the STAR experiment, located at the BNL RHIC. He was a postdoc at Wayne State between 2008-2010, where he worked in the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Group. He then moved to the University of Houston in 2010, where he is now an Associate Professor. His present day research mainly focuses on the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. He is currently the coordinator of the ALICE-USA collaboration, of which both Wayne State and the University of Houston are members.