Mazeliauskas Group

aleksas.jpg

Dr. Aleksas Mazeliauskas

Group leader

What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
—  Werner Heisenberg

Hello, my name is Aleksas Mazeliauskas. I am a theoretical physicist working on many-body phenomena emerging from interactions of a small number of particles in high-energy hadron collisions and ultracold quantum gases.

Since 2022 I have been leading an Emmy Noether Research Group at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Heidelberg University. As of 2024, I am a project leader at the Collaborative Research Center ISOQUANT.

My group’s research focuses on the microscopic understanding of the emergent collective phenomena in systems of varying sizes and at varying energy scales. I am especially interested in the question of thermalisation and hydrodynamic behaviour in isolated quantum systems.

Check out my research projects, publications and profiles of my group members. See the news announcements for open positions and my blog for occasional posts about my life as a researcher.

News

Aug 21, 2026 Our paper Adiabatic Hydrodynamization and Quasinormal Modes of Nonthermal Attractors with Matisse De Lescluze, Michal P. Heller, Bruno Scheihing-Hitschfeld and Clemens Werthmann is published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 082303 (2026)!
Jul 21, 2026 Fabian Zhou defended his PhD thesis: Perturbations in the early stages of heavy ion collisions. Congratulations!
Jul 15, 2026 I completed my habilitation at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Heidelberg University!
Mar 16, 2026 Our paper Hydrodynamic Attractor in Periodically Driven Ultracold Quantum Gases with Tilman Enss is published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 103402 (2026)!
Jan 09, 2026 Ferdinando Frascà is joining the group as a new PhD!

Latest posts

Jun 19, 2026 image Light ions: one year on

A year after the first light-ion collisions at the LHC, I catch up on a whirlwind of developments in my group — new results, new papers, new people, and a workshop coming to Heidelberg.

Jul 02, 2025 image First Oxygen Ion collisions at LHC

July 2-5, 2025, I made a short but memorable trip to CERN, where—for the first time in its history—the LHC collided oxygen ions.

Nov 17, 2024 image Light ion workshop at CERN

November 11-15, 2024, I and my group (Adam, Fabian and Jannis) attended CERN TH workshop on Light ion collisions at the LHC.

Selected publications

  1. assets/img/publication_preview/Coc_2026xfe.png
    Effect of Thermal Broadening on Light Hadron Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions
    Q’inich Coc, Oscar Garcia-Montero, and Aleksas Mazeliauskas
    2026
  2. assets/img/publication_preview/Reygers_2026pbg.png
    Constraining the Low-p_T η/\pi^0 Ratio for Direct-Photon Analyses with Blast-Wave Fits to \pi, K, and p Spectra
    Klaus Reygers, Andreas Kirchner, and Aleksas Mazeliauskas
    2026
  3. assets/img/publication_preview/Mazeliauskas_2026pqy.png
    Light-Ion Collisions: Bridging Small and Large QCD Systems
    Aleksas Mazeliauskas
    In 60th Rencontres de Moriond on QCD and High Energy Interactions: Moriond QCD 2026, 2026
  4. Eur. Phys. J. C
    assets/img/publication_preview/Jonas_2026yoz.png
    A compendium of cold-nuclear matter baseline predictions in light-ion collisions
    Florian Jonas, Constantin Loizides, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and 2 more authors
    Eur. Phys. J. C, 2026
  5. Adiabatic Hydrodynamization and Quasinormal Modes of Nonthermal Attractors
    Matisse De Lescluze, Michal P. Heller, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and 2 more authors
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2026
  6. Eur. Phys. J. A
    assets/img/publication_preview/Berges_2025izb.jpg
    Few is different: deciphering many-body dynamics in mesoscopic quantum gases
    Juergen Berges, Sandra Brandstetter, Jasmine Brewer, and 27 more authors
    Eur. Phys. J. A, 2026
  7. Supercooled Goldstone Bosons at the QCD Chiral Phase Transition
    Adrien Florio, Eduardo Grossi, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and 2 more authors
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2025
  8. Hydrodynamic Attractor in Periodically Driven Ultracold Quantum Gases
    Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and Tilman Enss
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2026
  9. Prescaling Relaxation to Nonthermal Attractors
    Michal P. Heller, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and Thimo Preis
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2024
  10. Medium-Enhanced c\barc Radiation
    Maximilian Attems, Jasmine Brewer, Gian Michele Innocenti, and 5 more authors
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2024
  11. assets/img/publication_preview/Brewer_2021kiv.png
    Opportunities of OO and pO collisions at the LHC
    Jasmine Brewer, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and Wilke Schee
    In Opportunities of OO and pO collisions at the LHC, 2021
  12. Discovering Partonic Rescattering in Light Nucleus Collisions
    Alexander Huss, Aleksi Kurkela, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and 3 more authors
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2021
  13. Rev. Mod. Phys.
    assets/img/publication_preview/Berges_2020fwq.png
    QCD thermalization: Ab initio approaches and interdisciplinary connections
    Jürgen Berges, Michal P. Heller, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and 1 more author
    Rev. Mod. Phys., 2021
  14. Hydrodynamic attractors, initial state energy and particle production in relativistic nuclear collisions
    Giuliano Giacalone, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and Sören Schlichting
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2019
  15. Chemical Equilibration in Hadronic Collisions
    Aleksi Kurkela, and Aleksas Mazeliauskas
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2019
  16. Prescaling and far-from-equilibrium hydrodynamics in the quark-gluon plasma
    Aleksas Mazeliauskas, and Jürgen Berges
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2019
  17. Matching the Nonequilibrium Initial Stage of Heavy Ion Collisions to Hydrodynamics with QCD Kinetic Theory
    Aleksi Kurkela, Aleksas Mazeliauskas, Jean-François Paquet, and 2 more authors
    Phys. Rev. Lett., 2019