My research activities involve studies of high energy heavy ion collisions. The objective of these studies is to search for Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a deconfined state of quarks and gluons. The phase transition from hadronic matter to QGP is predicted by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) to occur at a temperature of about 140 MeV at vanishing baryon density or at a lower temperature at finite baryon density. In QGP the approximate chiral symmetry, which is simultaneously broken under normal conditions, may be restored. The early universe is believed to be in the state of QGP during a brief period of time after the Big Bang. QGP may exist in the core of neutron stars.
My research activities are associated with the Experimental High Energy Nuclear Physics group in the Physics Department of Purdue University. The focus of our group is on the STAR experiment at RHIC. RHIC delievered first heavy ion beam in the summer of 2000. STAR has taken heavy ion data from 197Au+197Au collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 130 GeV per nucleon pair. Our group assumes many responsibilities in STAR. I am primary involved in the STAR Spectra/High-pT Physics Working Group as a co-convenor. However, I have broad physics interest, and am a member of other STAR Physics Working Groups: Strangeness, HBT, and Event-by-event.
Former and current graduate students:
Summer students and undergraduate students: