The Quark Gluon Plasma discovered at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and now also studied at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has incredible properties due to its strongly interacting nature. This award will fund studies of these strong interactions using very high energy versions of X-rays called direct photons, produced in the same collisions, that can penetrate the plasma and can thus provide important information. These photons can be compared with quarks produced at similar high energies but which should interact more strongly, like the other quark constituents of the plasma. In the project this will be done through studying correlations between photons and hadrons, which are particles made of quarks. Measurements of these correlations will be performed primarily using the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. The specific goal of these analysis studies will be understanding the newly discovered enhancement of a certain type of particle produced by the above mentioned quarks because of the plasma, at both RHIC with PHENIX and also at the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. For this reason our data analysis will include comparisons to, and some limited research activities using, the ATLAS experiment as well. In addition to these analysis projects, the investigator's group at Ohio University will support the upgrade of computing, analysis, hardware of PHENIX through operation of the PHENIX Sub-Detector called the Lead-Glass Calorimeter Detector as well as through leadership of groups and projects of detector development and analysis.
The project results in a number of broad benefits to society beyond the important goal of educating and training students. The PI maintains organizations in the state of Ohio and beyond to exchange Heavy Ion knowledge. International collaboration among nuclear physicists around the world is strengthened. Furthermore, the project contributes to the development of future computing in the nation. Finally the investigator contributes to the improvement of physics teaching related to the above research at Ohio University and in the Appalacian region by developing "Active Learning" classroom techniques.
