Project description
Gluon saturation during hadronic interactions at high energies
Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes the strong interactions between quarks and gluons, where gluons are the elementary particles mediating the strong force and producing hadrons such as protons and neutrons by ‘glueing’ multiple quarks together. The colour glass condensate (CGC) effective field theory suggests that saturation effects, due to a high density of gluons and quarks, play an important role in hadronic interactions at high energies. However, no clear gluon saturation signal has yet been detected. The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will soon allow high-precision studies of high-density hadronic matter. The ERC-funded GlueSatLight project aims to advance the CGC approach to high-energy QCD, enabling the simultaneous description of multiple scattering processes to probe non-linear dynamics in the EIC era.
Objective
In this project the properties of hadronic matter with emergent non-linear saturation phenomena at extremely large parton densities are theoretically determined. This is achieved by studying Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), describing the strong interactions between quarks and gluons, at high energies.
There are solid theoretical arguments formulated in the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) effective field theory to suggest that saturation effects play a major role in hadronic interactions at high energies. However, so far no clear signal of gluon saturation have been observed. This will change when the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) starts to measure photon-mediated electron-nucleus collisions allowing for precision studies of high density hadronic matter in heavy nuclei.
We develop the CGC approach to high-energy QCD to the level where, for the first time, multiple scattering processes can be simultaneously described from the unified framework at next-to-leading order accuracy. These developments are necessary to bring the theoretical framework to the level required to probe non-linear dynamics in the EIC era.
We extract the non-perturbative proton structure from global analyses and determine if non-linear QCD dynamics is observable in current collider energies. We calculate predictions for the EIC and determine how different processes at the EIC probe gluon saturation. Before the EIC, photon-induced processes at high energies are available at the LHC in ultra peripheral collisions that we use to extract, for the first time, the effect of non-linear dynamics on the nuclear high-energy structure at NLO accuracy.
The fundamentally important results are applied to develop a new description for the initial condition of heavy ion collisions where Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) is produced. We determine the effect of NLO initial state description on the extraction of fundamental QGP properties, and quantify the synergies between the LHC heavy ion program and future EIC.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics particle accelerator
- engineering and technology materials engineering colors
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics gluons
- engineering and technology materials engineering amorphous solids
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics quarks
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2023-COG
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40100 Jyvaskyla
Finland
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