QGP production mechanism from the viewpoint of strong field physics

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K03836
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 15010:Theoretical studies related to particle-, nuclear-, cosmic ray and astro-physics
• Research Institution: Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (2020-2022); High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (2019)
• Principal Investigator: Itakura Kazunori 長崎総合科学大学, 共通教育部門, 教授 (30415046)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 高エネルギー原子核衝突 / クォークグルーオンプラズマ / 強い場の物理

Outline of Final Research Achievements

High-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions create "Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP)", which is a thermal state made of quarks and gluons. However, the underlying mechanism how the QGP is formed is not well understood. Since the state before the collisions is known to be a dense gluonic state called the Color Glass Condensate (CGC), the issue is to identify the physical mechanism of the transition from CGC to QGP. While somewhat standard scenario is based on a kinetic theory, I examined in this research project the possibility of new mechanism related to strong color electromagnetic fields, which is the characteristic property of the state just after the collision.

Free Research Field

高エネルギーハドロン理論

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

QGP生成過程という現象は、強結合量子多体系の時間発展を理解する必要があり、理論物理学にとって最も難しい「強結合」「多体」「時間発展」の３つが関係する重要な問題である。一見複雑にみえるこの現象を、実は「強い場の物理」の観点から読み解けば、最終的な結論は得られてはいないものの、比較的容易に理解できる可能性がある。また、強い場の物理自体は、高強度レーザーにおける粒子対生成などの新規現象や、中性子星やマグネターなどの超強磁場中での物理とも関係し、学術的に意義の高いテーマである。