Relativistic Heavy-Ion Physics
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Head of research group: Professor Hans-Åke Gustafsson
The ultimate goal of our research is to catch a glimpse of the Universe at the
moment of its creation. In interactions between nuclei at high energies,
extremely hot and dense nuclear matter can be produced and probably be
melted into its constituents of quarks and gluons. A phase transition from
ordinary nuclear matter to a new type of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, is
searched for. The Universe is believed to have existed in such a phase a
few microseconds after its creation in the Big Bang.
The experiments are performed in large international collaborations at
CERN in Switzerland and at
Brookhaven National Laboratory
in the United States. These collaborations involve several hundred physicists from 10-15 different countries.
The group has focused the experimental activity on development of advanced
read-out systems for tracking chambers. This development is carried out in
close cooperation with Swedish industries. We are also working with experimental data analysis.
Read about the new interesting observations at RHIC.