Wednesday Colloquia

Perspective from a Life on Lattice : An Amazing Odyssey in the Femto-World

by Prof. Rajiv V. Gavai (Department of Theoretical Physics, TIFR)

Wednesday, July 31, 2019 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at Lecture Theatre ( AG-66 )
TIFR
Description
Strongly interacting matter is described by Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD), the theory of interactions of quarks and gluons. The large coupling between its constituents necessitates new theoretical tools. QCD on a space-time lattice is the most reliable such tool available to us. One can employ it to look for new phases in the femto-world of protons and neutrons at high temperatures and densities, and investigate their properties in the QCD phase diagram.

Remarkably, it is possible to investigate these phases in a laboratory. Experiments at LHC, Geneva and RHIC, BNL, New York are engaged in such exciting endeavours. Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) phase and a possible QCD critical point have thus attracted a lot of theoretical, as well as experimental, attention. I shall present TIFR lattice QCD results in this talk and explain how synergy between experimentalists and theorists is guiding us in this odyssey. An experimental discovery of the QCD critical point will be a profound and unique landmark in physics.