Colloquium - Jinfeng Liao (Indiana University) - The Story of Spin in an Extreme Fluid

Jinfeng Liao (Indiana University) 9/15/20 colloquium speaker
September 15, 2020
3:30PM - 5:30PM
Zoom webinar

Date Range
2020-09-15 15:30:00 2020-09-15 17:30:00 Colloquium - Jinfeng Liao (Indiana University) - The Story of Spin in an Extreme Fluid Spin is an intrinsic quantum degree of freedom for various elementary particles that together make all of matter in our Universe. A salient feature of spin is its polarizability when subject to external probes such as a magnetic field. This feature is at the heart of many interesting phenomena across different disciplines of physics. In this talk, I will briefly recount some of those examples and then tell the latest fascinating story of spin from nuclear physics research, and more specifically from a new phase of nuclear matter called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This subatomic quantum material occupied the baby Universe briefly and is re-created today in laboratories through high energy nuclear collisions. Two decades of comprehensive studies have found the QGP to be an extreme fluid in several aspects, as I shall show you. It is only in recent years that physicists have started to unravel novel effects arising from the interplay between particle spin and the extreme conditions available in a QGP droplet. I will discuss how the polarization of spin by chirality, vorticity and magnetic field leads to nontrivial signatures that can be observed experimentally.​   Talk link:  https://osu.zoom.us/rec/share/a6xEK9HIT-A8qaXH2R9YRGz_bGpiS9UeTJHcLVjgTi2ycTf6jRyoqJ6U1gbbDQCu.ynpQ7Aeeetev3wGm?startTime=1600199758000   Zoom webinar America/New_York public

Spin is an intrinsic quantum degree of freedom for various elementary particles that together make all of matter in our Universe. A salient feature of spin is its polarizability when subject to external probes such as a magnetic field. This feature is at the heart of many interesting phenomena across different disciplines of physics. In this talk, I will briefly recount some of those examples and then tell the latest fascinating story of spin from nuclear physics research, and more specifically from a new phase of nuclear matter called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This subatomic quantum material occupied the baby Universe briefly and is re-created today in laboratories through high energy nuclear collisions. Two decades of comprehensive studies have found the QGP to be an extreme fluid in several aspects, as I shall show you. It is only in recent years that physicists have started to unravel novel effects arising from the interplay between particle spin and the extreme conditions available in a QGP droplet. I will discuss how the polarization of spin by chirality, vorticity and magnetic field leads to nontrivial signatures that can be observed experimentally.​

 

Talk link:  https://osu.zoom.us/rec/share/a6xEK9HIT-A8qaXH2R9YRGz_bGpiS9UeTJHcLVjgTi2ycTf6jRyoqJ6U1gbbDQCu.ynpQ7Aeeetev3wGm?startTime=1600199758000