Larry McLerran

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Larry Dean McLerran (born February 24, 1949 in Yakima , Washington ) is an American theoretical nuclear physicist specializing in quark-gluon plasma and other phases of quark-gluon matter (such as color-glass condensate and so-called glassma formed from it ), which are generated in high-energy heavy ion collisions, deals with elementary particle physics, cosmology and quantum chromodynamics .

biography

McLerran studied at the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in 1971 and a doctorate in 1975. As a post-doctoral student , he was from 1975 to 1978 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from 1978 to 1980 at SLAC . He became Assistant Professor in 1981 and Associate Professor in 1984 at the University of Washington, was from 1984 to 1989 at Fermilab (and Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois ) and from 1988 to 2000 Professor at the University of Minnesota , where he was from 1989 to 1992 headed the William Fine Institute for Theoretical Physics. From 1999 to 2004 he was a senior scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and head of their theory group. Since 2003 he has headed the theory group at the RIKEN -Brookhaven Research Center (as successor to TD Lee ).

He was involved in early studies on quark-gluon plasma and in the development of perturbation theory and Monte Carlo techniques . He was also a pioneer in the theory of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions (estimation of achievable energy densities, etc.). In 2007 he suspected the existence of another phase in addition to the baryon phase and the free quarks in the QCD ( Quarkyonic phase ). In the color-glass-condensate (CGC) he assumed the proportion of the nuclear wave function that determines the initial states of core-core collisions and showed that the CGC forms a highly coherent field of color charge fields (glass ma) after the collision In the further course a thermalized quark-gluon plasma forms. In 2005 he and Miklos Gyulassy took the view that heavy ion collisions at RHIC had formed a quark-gluon plasma.

In addition, he dealt with baryon number violation in the electroweak theory.

From 1996 to 1998 he was visiting professor at Nordita .

He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1990), was a Sloan Research Fellow from 1982 to 1984 and received the Humboldt Research Award in 1988 , with which he was with Walter Greiner in Frankfurt. In 2009 he was J. Hans D. Jensen Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Heidelberg ( Jensen Prize ) and from 2011 he was a professor at the Hua Zhong Normal University in China. For 2015 he received the Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics for pioneering work in understanding QCD at high energy densities and for the theoretical foundations of our understanding of ultra-relativistic heavy ion scattering . The laudation also emphasized that his work was essential for experiments at the RHIC and LHC and that he trained a generation of young theorists in this field.

Since 2000 he has been an external member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences. In 2007 he received the Brookhaven Science and Technology Award.

From 2000 he was editor of Nuclear Physics A.

Fonts

  • Physics of the Quark-Gluon-Plasma, Rev. Mod. Phys., 58, 1986, p. 1021
  • with Keijo Kajantie: Probes of Quark-Gluon Plasma in High Energy Collisions, Annual Reviews of Particle and Nuclear Science, 37, 1987, p. 293
  • Strongly Interacting Matter Matter at Very High Energy Density: 3 Lectures in Zakopane, Acta Physica Polonica, B 41, 2010, 2799–2826 (Lectures in 50th Crakow School Theoretical Physics 2010, Zakopane), Arxiv
  • A Brief Introduction to the Color Glass Condensate and the Glasma, Proc. ISMD 2008, Arxiv
  • with Edmond Iancu, Andrei Leonidov: The Color Glass Condensate: An Introduction, NATO Advanced Study Institute QCD perspectives on hot and dense matter , Cargèse, 6-18 August 2001, Arxiv
  • The Color Glass Condensate and Small x Physics: 4 Lectures, Schladming Lecture, LN Physics 583, Springer Verlag 2002, pp. 291–334, Arxiv
  • Theoretical Concepts for Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions, Proc. DPF 2009, Detroit, Arxiv

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ Appreciation at the APS, Feshbach Prize
  3. ↑ For his pioneering contributions to our understanding of quantum chromodynamics at high energy density and laying the theoretical foundations of experimental ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. His work has been a crucial guide to experiments at RHIC and LHC, and he has mentored a generation of young theorists.
personal data
SURNAME McLerran, Larry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McLerran, Larry Dean (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American theoretical nuclear physicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Yakima , Washington