Phenomenology of relativistic heavy-ion collisions: QCD under extreme conditions

Abstract

The present project consists to apply hydrodynamic simulations in order to study several aspects of the QCD matter under extreme conditions of temperature and/or baryon density and has three main lines of work. As a starting point we will consider the early time dynamics of high energy heavy-ion collisions, focusing to improve the initial conditions needed for the mentioned hydrodynamic simulations. The next step will be the characterization of smaller systems, such as proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions, which consists to perform studies of how the momentum correlations, which may be generated at the initial stages of these collisions, modify the subsequent hydrodynamic evolution of the produced system. Lastly we will study the proprieties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma at nonzero baryon density, which can be achieved by considering lower collision energies. In this case it will be possible to explore other aspects of the QCD phase diagram which are not accessible at higher energies and also study the behavior of QCD matter in various regions of temperature and baryon density where the main question is the existence and location of a critical end point.