Research

My research interests are in the field of high-energy heavy ion physics, towards the extension of our knowledge about the basic laws of the nature. It has been long assumed that, at sufficiently high energy densities, matter transforms from a state of confined hadrons (the “ordinary matter”) to a deconfined state of quarks and gluons, often called the Quark-Gluon Plasma. The first decade of the operation of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) proved the existence of a deconfined state of matter with partonic degrees of freedom, which exhibits dynamical properties similar to a very low viscosity fluid. In more recent years, improved collision rates make it possible to carry out precision measurements of the properties of this strongly interacting quark matter and gain a deeper understanding of the strong interaction. In parallel with the completion of the LHC, the emphasis at RHIC shifted towards the transition between the perturbative and non-perturbative regions of QCD. Besides fundamental research I am also interested in simulations and detector development that provide the background for future cutting-edge measurements.

My research concentrates on the following sub-fields of high-energy heavy-ion physics:

• Open and hidden heavy flavor (beauty and charm quark) production
• Collectivity in small systems, heavy and light flavor
• Jet structures in small systems
• Detector R & D
• Femtoscopy (former topic)
• Neutral mesons and direct photon production (former topic)