Jinfeng Liao, Indiana University
Anomalous Chiral Transport in Heavy Ion Collisions
Argonne Physics Division Seminar - 3:30 PM, 17 Oct 2016
Building 203, Conference Room R-150

Anomalous chiral transport processes, with the notable example of Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) and Chiral Magnetic Wave (CMW), are remarkable phenomena that manifest microscopic quantum anomaly of chiral fermions in a macroscopic many-body setting. Significant progress has been achieved both in their theoretical understanding and in their experimental search. In this talk, an elementary introduction will be given for the CME as well as other anomalous chiral effects such as the CMW and the vorticity-driven effects. The theoretical foundation for describing them is rapidly emerging, in particular the anomalous fluid dynamics framework. We combine this new framework with the state-of-the-art, data-validated viscous hydro simulations of heavy ion collisions to describe the anomalous chiral transport of various charges in the quark-gluon plasma. Such a simulation tool has allowed us to systematically examine and contrast the transport of conserved charges with and without anomaly effects, as well as to quantitatively compare modeling predictions with experimental data. We will present these results and discuss their implications for the search of anomalous chiral transport effects. Finally the currently pressing issues and anticipated future developments, in the context of recently formed Beam Energy Scan Theory (BEST) Collaboration, will be envisioned.

Argonne Physics Division Seminar Schedule