Jinfeng Liao
Indiana University, IN·Physics
Protons and neutrons are built from smaller particles called quarks and gluons. Just after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with a hot soup of these particles, called quark-gluon plasma.
- Fields
Physics
- Topics
nuclear physics
quark-gluon plasma
quantum chromodynamics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Quantify chirality transport through the chiral magnetic effect (CME) in quark-gluon plasma, using anomalous viscous hydrodynamics simulations and Bayesian analysis of heavy-ion data across many beam energies.
- Establish the initial angular momentum conditions in heavy-ion collisions and develop a spin hydrodynamics theory to describe how angular momentum moves through quark-gluon plasma.
- Calculate observable spin polarization and alignment signals with phenomenological simulations, and apply machine learning to search collision data for signatures of angular momentum transport.
More about the research
Physicists now recreate it by smashing heavy atomic nuclei together at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This theory project studies quantum transport in that plasma: how quantum properties such as particle handedness and spin move and evolve through it. The aim is to explain how quarks and gluons make up nuclear matter.
Why it matters
This is basic science. It aims to improve understanding of how quarks and gluons form protons, neutrons and the matter of the early universe. Its theoretical calculations and analysis tools will help experimental physicists at RHIC and the LHC interpret measurements of particle handedness and spin. Over time, this could sharpen our picture of the strong force that holds visible matter together.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jennifer Klay
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, CA·Physics
Install and commission the ALICE Fast Interaction Trigger (FIT) detector at the CERN LHC for Run 3 with undergraduate researchers.
Rosi Reed
Lehigh University, PA·Physics
Measure how jet energy loss in quark-gluon plasma depends on temperature, density and path length, using dijet momentum imbalance and jet v2 from STAR and sPHENIX at RHIC.
Wim Cosyn
Florida International University, FL·Physics·Early-career
Model high-energy electron scattering off the deuteron and helium using light-front quantum mechanics to separate nuclear structure from reaction dynamics.
The school
Indiana University: 21 labs on PI Pages, $897M a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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