Emmy Noether Research Group
Many-body QCD phenomena in high-energy proton and nuclear collisions
In 2022, I was awarded Emmy Noether Group Funding by German Research Foundation (DFG) to conduct a six-year research programme on the Many-body QCD phenomena in high-energy proton and nuclear collisions at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Heidelberg University. My group will develop the microscopic description of the emergent collective phenomena in systems of varying sizes and varying energy scales.
Emmy Noether was an outstanding mathematician with major contributions to mathematics and theoretical physics. In particular, she discovered that every continuous symmetry has a corresponding conserved charge. This principle is now known as Noether’s theorem. Emmy Noether was also a pioneering woman in science, who defied the norms of her time. I am honoured to receive the grant named after her.
Many-body QCD phenomena in high-energy proton and nuclear collisions
Studying the equilibration and collectivity in across size and energy scales
Emmy Noether Programme
Junior research group funding by German Research Foundation (DFG)
People
Principal Investigator
Aleksas Mazeliauskas
PhD Student
Fabian Zhou
Master Student
Jannis Gebhard
About me
[ˈaːlɛksɐs mɐzɛˈlʲæuˑskɐs]
[AH-lexas ma-zeh-LYOW-skas]
I am a theoretical physicist working on many-body phenomena emerging from fundamental interactions of elementary particles.
In my research I connect models of nuclear, hadronic and particle physics with methods of relativistic hydrodynamics, statistical physics and out-of-equilibrium dynamics to study the hot and dense nuclear matter created in high-energy hadron collisions. My work has contributed to a better understanding of fundamental states of matter, thermalisation of isolated quantum systems, and how a fluid-like behaviour emerges from a relatively small number of constituents interacting via the strong force.
I work at Institute for Theoretical Physics at Heidelberg University. Previously, I was a senior research Fellow at Theoretical Physics department at CERN, Switzerland. My first postdoctoral position was at Heidelberg University, Germany. I worked in the groups of Prof. Dr. Jürgen Berges and Priv.-Doz. Dr. Stefan Flörchinger at the Institute for Theoretical Physics under the collaborative research project SFB 1225 ISOQUANT. Before that I was a PhD student at Nuclear Theory Group at Stony Brook University, US (PhD advisor Prof. Dr. Derek Teaney).
Education
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PhD in Physics, 2012 - 2017
Stony Brook University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, United States
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Master of Mathematics, 2011 - 2012
Cambridge University, St. Catharine's college, United Kingdom
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BA Mathematics, 2008 - 2011
Cambridge University, St. Catharine's college, United Kingdom
Experience
Research and Teaching
I am a junior research group leader at Heidelberg University. My main work directions are
- equilibration phenomena in nuclear collisions collisions and cold atomic gasses
- QCD kinetic theory simulations of Quark Gluon Plasma
- modification of Standard Model processes embedded in high density nuclear environment
- resonance decays in the final stages of heavy-ion collisions
I am also one of Principal Investigators at the Collaborative Research Centre ISOQUANT.
Other experience:
- leader of physics section at additional training school NMA for highschool students in Lithuania.
I was a member of the heavy ion physics group at CERN Theoretical Physics Department. I have continued interest in
- thermalization in QCD and the emergent macroscopic descriptions
- jet quenching and other Standard Model processes in nuclear collisions
- hadron and light nuclei production in heavy ion collisions
- future LHC experiments with heavy and light ions
Other experience:
- active member of CERN Lithuanian community.
- leader of physics section at additional training school NMA.
Teaching experience:
- Two lectures at CERN-Fermilab summer school.
I was a member of the collaborative research center
“Isolated quantum systems and universality in
extreme conditions”.
My work was centered on understanding the early times dynamics in heavy ion collisions and the universal aspects of information loss. I also maintained interest in other stages of the collision like hydrodynamic expansion and hadronization.
- I co-wrote a kinetic pre-equilibrium propagator KøMPøST.
- We found a pre-scaling regime in QCD kinetic theory.
- I co-developed an efficient method of computing direct resonance decay products, FastReso.
- We analysed identified particle spectra measured by ALICE.
- We studied photon interferometry as a probe of pre-equilibrium properties of quark-gluon plasma.
Other experience:
- Convener at EMMI Rapid Research Task Force on Dynamics of critical fluctutions:theory-phenomenology-HIC and the 3rd international Workshop on QCD Challenges from pp to AA
- Supervised a bachelor student project.
- I invited seminar speakers and helped organising group’s social dinners.
Teaching experience:
- Head tutor, Advanced Quantum Field Theory, summer semester 2019
- Head tutor, Quantum Field Theory I, winter semester 2018-2019
- Master seminar leader, QCD Matter in heavy ion collisions, summer semester 2018
- Head tutor, Quantum Field Theory I, winter semester 2017-2018
I did my PhD work on Fluctuations in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions with prof. Derek Teaney in Nuclear Theory Group. My main research topics were:
- Early stages of heavy ion collisions with effective kinetic theory equilibration
- Nonlinear thermal noise corrections to heavy ion expansion
- Subleading harmonic flows and factorization breaking with principal components
- 3D viscous relativistic hydrodynamic code for heavy ion collisions
Other experience:
- I organised graduate student seminars in our group and co-organised group dinners and BBQs.
Teaching experience:
- Recitation instructor, undergraduate electromagnetism and mechanics, Spring/Fall semesters 2014.
- Teaching assistant, undergraduate mechanics laboratory, Fall/Spring semesters 2012-2013. Received David Fox award for the outstanding Teaching Assistant.
Other research interests
I am fascinated by many-body physics emerging from interactions of elementary particles in a hot and dense nuclear matter created in high-energy hadron collisions at particle accelerators like LHC (CERN) and RHIC (BNL). I am trying to understand the properties of the new state of nuclear matter—the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), which is formed at extreme temperature and density. Outside hadron collisions, such conditions can be found only at the beginning of the Universe and in violent neutron start mergers.
Recently I have been particularly interested in the formation of the quark-gluon plasma at the earliest stages of the collision. I use a weakly coupled kinetic theory of quarks and gluons to perform state-of-the-art simulations elucidating the phenomena of equilibration and fluid-like behaviour of relatively small number of particles interacting via the strong force. I have also worked on the hydrodynamic descriptions of quark-gluon plasma expansion and I am actively working on improving the conversion from fluid fields to measurable hadrons at late stages of the collision.
Theory uncertainties of perturbative calculations
Estimating missing higher order terms with Bayesian inference
High-pT partonic rescattering
Modifications of energetic probes in nuclear environment
Effective Kinetic Theory
Simulating the non-equilibrium dynamics of QCD plasmas.
Chemical equilibration
Quark production in weakly coupled QCD plasma
Prescaling
Self-similar evolution in far from equilibrium systems
Hydro-kinetics
Stochastic fluctuations in out-of-equilibrium systems
Machine learning in heavy-ion collisions
Analysing harmonic flows using Principal Component Analysis
Hadron formation and resonance decays
Fluid to hadron conversion in heavy-ion models
Recent publications
Editors’ suggestions
Chemical equilibration in weakly coupled QCD
Matching the Nonequilibrium Initial Stage of Heavy Ion Collisions to Hydrodynamics with QCD Kinetic Theory
Talks
Recent Posts
Physics outreach in Heidelberg
Settling in Heidelberg
There and back again
End of the fellowship
Second Lithuanian Particle Physics Meeting
Contact
- a.mazeliauskas@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de
- +49-6221-54 5046
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Philosophenweg 12, 108
DE-69120 Heidelberg
Germany - aleksas.eu