Smashing Nuclei in Search of Phase Transitions

Wolfgang Bauer, Michigan State University

The nuclear matter phase diagram contains at least two phase transitions: one between the nuclear quantum liquid and a gas of hadrons, and another between the hadron gas and a deconfined quark- gluon mixture. We are close to proving that the second phase transition can be seen in relativistic nuclear collisions. But the search for the first phase transition has recently yielded very exciting results not only on the existence of the phase transition, but also on the order of the transition, the location of the critical point, the universality class, and finite size scaling. A selection of these results will be presented, and connections to other fields (astrophysics, molecular physics, condensed matter physics) will be shown.

The P/T Colloquium is
typically held each
Thursday, 3:45–5:00 PM.

Collaborations and Refreshments, 3:15 PM.