Professor Joseph Kapusta

This group focuses on quantum chromodynamics (QCD is the fundamental theory behind nuclear physics) at extremely high temperatures and densities. These conditions are reached in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions in experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab and at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. By colliding heavy ions, researchers are recreating and studying the kind of hot and dense matter formed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang. This group is leading a robust research program which is improving the state of the art in modeling and understanding the early, middle, and late stages of heavy-ion collisions and evolution of matter and radiation in the very early universe.