Speaker
Mr
Blessed Ngwenya
(University of Cape Town)
Description
Heavy ion collisions at RHIC and at the LHC produce an enormous amount of energy that enables the nuclei and its constituent particles to melt, thus releasing gluons, quarks and antiquarks, travelling in different directions with different momenta. Studies of these collisions have shown that low transverse momentum observables describe a strongly coupled plasma (quark-gluon plasma), an almost perfect liquid that evolves hydrodynamically and flows with almost no viscosity. Focusing on observables related to high mass and high momentum particles, we numerically integrate the Langevin equation that describes the motion of unbound heavy quarks propagating in a strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma. We present predictions for the suppression of the heavy flavor mesons that these heavy quarks decay to; we show that these predictions are in good agreement with experimental data. We outline future valuable measurements that will provide a vital consistency check for the assumed dynamics of the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma.
Supervisor details<br><b>If not a student, type N/A.</b><br>Student abstract submision<br>requires supervisor permission:<br>please give their name,<br> institution and email address.
Dr W. A. Horowitz, University of Cape Town, wahorowitz@gmail.com
| Please confirm that you<br>have carefully read the<br>abstract submission instructions<br>under the menu item<br>"Call for Abstracts"<br><b>(Yes / No)</b> | Yes |
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| Consideration for<br>student awards<br><b>Choose one option<br>from those below.</b><br>N/A<br>Hons<br>MSc<br>PhD | Hons |
Primary author
Mr
Blessed Ngwenya
(University of Cape Town)
Co-author
Dr
Will Horowitz
(University of Cape Town)
