Monday, 16 March 2026
TBA
In this lecture series I will give an overview of lattice QCD studies of hot nuclear matter with emphasis on heavy flavor probes. In the first lecture I will review the lattice QCD results on the deconfinement and chiral transitions, and the equation of state. In the subsequent lectures, I will discuss the nature of heavy flavor degrees of freedom across the transition temperature, the fate of heavy quark anti-quark bound states and heavy quark diffusion.
I shall discuss the physics of hard probe of dense and hot matter produced in heavy ion collisions from the view point of open quantum systems.
Tuesday, 17 March 2026
TBA
We discuss transverse momentum broadening, radiative emission and thermalisation of jets in the QGP.
High-energy collider processes naturally produce pairs of particles with correlated spins, providing a unique arena to study quantum entanglement at relativistic energies. In the talk, we discuss how spin correlations in processes such as heavy-quark production can be used to quantify entanglement and formulate Bell-type tests using experimentally accessible observables.
Wednesday, 18 March 2026
We discuss transverse momentum broadening, radiative emission and thermalisation of jets in the QGP.
In this lecture series I will give an overview of lattice QCD studies of hot nuclear matter with emphasis on heavy flavor probes. In the first lecture I will review the lattice QCD results on the deconfinement and chiral transitions, and the equation of state. In the subsequent lectures, I will discuss the nature of heavy flavor degrees of freedom across the transition temperature, the fate of heavy quark anti-quark bound states and heavy quark diffusion.
I will give an overview of the study of jets in the QGP. I will cover aspects of energy loss and jet substructure.
I summarize our latest results on the evolution of heavy quarks in the early stage of high energy nuclear collisions, focusing on proton-nucleus collisions. The early stage is described as an evolving glasma, and the heavy quarks are coupled to this via relativistic kinetic equations. After an introduction to the problem and to the formulation of the glasma evolution on a real-time lattice, I will present results on particle spectra and elliptic flow.
TBA
Thursday, 19 March 2026
We discuss transverse momentum broadening, radiative emission and thermalisation of jets in the QGP.
TBA
Jets produced in proton–nucleus (p+A) collisions provide a powerful probe of QCD in a nuclear environment. Measurements at RHIC and the LHC use jets to address three central questions. First, since jet-QGP interactions are expected to be small, or even absent, in p+A collisions they serve as a crucial baseline for interpreting observations in nucleus–nucleus collisions where strong jet quenching signals have been shown to exist. Second, they reveal how partons propagate through cold nuclear matter, constraining effects such as nuclear parton distribution functions and initial-state multiple scattering. Third, at forward rapidities and small momentum fractions, jet measurements probe the high-gluon-density regime where nonlinear QCD dynamics and possible gluon saturation may emerge.
In this lecture I will discuss how key results from RHIC and the LHC have collectively tested QCD in the high-density cold nuclear matter environment, sharpened the interpretation of jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions, and provide a preview of the studies to come at the future Electron–Ion Collider (EIC).
Friday, 20 March 2026
In this lecture series I will give an overview of lattice QCD studies of hot nuclear matter with emphasis on heavy flavor probes. In the first lecture I will review the lattice QCD results on the deconfinement and chiral transitions, and the equation of state. In the subsequent lectures, I will discuss the nature of heavy flavor degrees of freedom across the transition temperature, the fate of heavy quark anti-quark bound states and heavy quark diffusion.
TBA
In this talk, I'll give a brief overview of the theory of probing the internal structure of the nucleon in 3D at the upcoming electron-ion collider (EIC).
Heavy quarks are produced predominantly in the early stages of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and thus probe the entire evolution of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP). Measurements of open heavy flavour and quarkonia provide complementary information on heavy-quark transport, in-medium energy loss, and color screening in hot QCD matter. In this talk, recent experimental results from RHIC and the LHC will be discussed and their implications for understanding the properties of the QGP will be highlighted.
TBA
Monday, 23 March 2026
Multi-body QCD exhibits rich and complex phenomenology, notably in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) at high temperature, which is generated in nuclear collisions at RHIC and the LHC; and at high density, corresponding to low momentum fraction x in hadrons and nuclei, which can be probed by forward RHIC and LHC measurements and the future Electron-Ion Collider. These lectures will explore how we study multi-body QCD by combining experiment and theory. The focus of the first two lectures is the measurement of jet quenching, the interaction of energetic quark and gluon jets with the QGP. The third lecture discusses a comprehensive analysis of the world’s jet quenching data using Bayesian Inference enhanced by Machine Learning, to quantify the structure and dynamics of the QGP. The fourth lecture turns to many-body QCD at low x, presenting a new framework for the comprehensive analysis of Deep Inelastic Scattering and hadron collider data - likewise using ML-enhanced Bayesian Inference - to search for evidence of non-linear QCD evolution and gluon saturation.
I shall discuss the physics of hard probe of dense and hot matter produced in heavy ion collisions from the view point of open quantum systems.
Heavy quarks, produced in early hard scatterings in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, provide a unique probe of the early-time electromagnetic fields and the geometry of the quark–gluon plasma. In this talk, I discuss the rotational Brownian motion of heavy quark spins (semi-classical treatment) in the QCD medium and its consequences for the polarization of open heavy-flavor hadrons. Analytical expressions for both vector and tensor polarization are derived, corresponding to baryon spin polarization and vector meson spin alignment, respectively. Assuming that heavy quarks acquire initial spin polarization from the strong magnetic fields generated in off-central collisions, we study how medium interactions lead to momentum-dependent depolarization and compare the results with recent measurements of D∗+ spin alignment reported by the ALICE Collaboration. Furthermore, we introduce polarization harmonics of open heavy hadrons as a novel observable sensitive to the initial geometric anisotropies of the fireball. The resulting azimuthal modulation of heavy-flavor polarization reflects path-length dependent spin relaxation and is directly related to the initial spatial eccentricities, providing a new and complementary probe of the early-time dynamics and geometry of relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
We study direct photon production within a hybrid minijet-hydrodynamics framework that incorporates initial-state fluctuations and minijet-medium interactions. Using the IP-Glasma + MUSIC + UrQMD framework, and a dedicated photon emission module, we perform a comprehensive analysis of direct photon production. By including minijet effects in the hydrodynamic evolution, we examine the sensitivity of photon yields and elliptic flow to the dynamics of the quark-gluon plasma. Our results demonstrate the significant impact of hydrodynamic evolution on photon production, highlighting the essential role of minijet-medium interactions.
TBA
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Multi-body QCD exhibits rich and complex phenomenology, notably in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) at high temperature, which is generated in nuclear collisions at RHIC and the LHC; and at high density, corresponding to low momentum fraction x in hadrons and nuclei, which can be probed by forward RHIC and LHC measurements and the future Electron-Ion Collider. These lectures will explore how we study multi-body QCD by combining experiment and theory. The focus of the first two lectures is the measurement of jet quenching, the interaction of energetic quark and gluon jets with the QGP. The third lecture discusses a comprehensive analysis of the world’s jet quenching data using Bayesian Inference enhanced by Machine Learning, to quantify the structure and dynamics of the QGP. The fourth lecture turns to many-body QCD at low x, presenting a new framework for the comprehensive analysis of Deep Inelastic Scattering and hadron collider data - likewise using ML-enhanced Bayesian Inference - to search for evidence of non-linear QCD evolution and gluon saturation.
I shall discuss the physics of hard probe of dense and hot matter produced in heavy ion collisions from the view point of open quantum systems.
Heavy quark systems are ideal tools to probe the physical properties of quark-gluon plasma. In this talk, I will first introduce the open system description for quantum Brownian motion. Then, it is applied to heavy quark and quarkonium in the quark-gluon plasma. Finally, I will discuss how this approach can be used to describe heavy quarks near the QCD critical point.
TBA
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Multi-body QCD exhibits rich and complex phenomenology, notably in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) at high temperature, which is generated in nuclear collisions at RHIC and the LHC; and at high density, corresponding to low momentum fraction x in hadrons and nuclei, which can be probed by forward RHIC and LHC measurements and the future Electron-Ion Collider. These lectures will explore how we study multi-body QCD by combining experiment and theory. The focus of the first two lectures is the measurement of jet quenching, the interaction of energetic quark and gluon jets with the QGP. The third lecture discusses a comprehensive analysis of the world’s jet quenching data using Bayesian Inference enhanced by Machine Learning, to quantify the structure and dynamics of the QGP. The fourth lecture turns to many-body QCD at low x, presenting a new framework for the comprehensive analysis of Deep Inelastic Scattering and hadron collider data - likewise using ML-enhanced Bayesian Inference - to search for evidence of non-linear QCD evolution and gluon saturation.
I shall discuss the physics of hard probe of dense and hot matter produced in heavy ion collisions from the view point of open quantum systems.
In this talk, I will discuss the complex heavy-quark potential in an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma using kinetic theory with a Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook collision kernel to incorporate collisions via gluon collective modes. By modifying the medium's dielectric permittivity with momentum anisotropy and finite collisional rates, we derive both the real and imaginary components of the potential. While collisions have minimal impact on the real part and binding energy, they significantly amplify the imaginary part, modulating the effects of anisotropy. Most importantly, the Weibel instability in momentum-space anisotropic plasmas is removed in the presence of collisions.
I will discuss the lattice calculation of the thermal potential and its use in describing quarkonium spectral functions. I will also present lattice calculations of the corrections to the potential arising from finite chemical potential and from the spin of heavy quarks.
Heavy quarks are unique probes of the transport properties and hadronization of the quark–gluon plasma formed in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, but their strong coupling to the evolving medium requires a multi-ingredient approach for reliable descriptions of in-medium interactions. I will present a newly developed framework [1] that combines state-of-the-art ingredients for heavy-flavor transport in hot QCD matter. It couples lattice-QCD–constrained T-matrix based elastic scattering to relativistic Langevin dynamics with diffusion and medium-induced gluon radiation, embedded in a 2+1D viscous hydrodynamic evolution. Hadronization is evaluated with a four-momentum conserving recombination approach supplemented with fragmentation constrained by proton–proton data, followed by diffusion in the hadronic phase using the Ultra-relativistic-Quantum-Molecular-Dynamics (UrQMD) model. I will report our recent results for charm-hadron nuclear modification factors, elliptic flow, and charm hadro-chemistry ratios, and compare them to Pb–Pb data at 5 TeV from ALICE and CMS as well as Au–Au data at 200 GeV from STAR. Constraints on heavy-flavor diffusion coefficient in hot QCD matter are discussed. [1]: T. Krishna, R. Rapp, Y. Fu, S. A. Bass, and W. Ke, Phys. Lett. B 871,(2025)(139999)
Thursday, 26 March 2026
Multi-body QCD exhibits rich and complex phenomenology, notably in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) at high temperature, which is generated in nuclear collisions at RHIC and the LHC; and at high density, corresponding to low momentum fraction x in hadrons and nuclei, which can be probed by forward RHIC and LHC measurements and the future Electron-Ion Collider. These lectures will explore how we study multi-body QCD by combining experiment and theory. The focus of the first two lectures is the measurement of jet quenching, the interaction of energetic quark and gluon jets with the QGP. The third lecture discusses a comprehensive analysis of the world’s jet quenching data using Bayesian Inference enhanced by Machine Learning, to quantify the structure and dynamics of the QGP. The fourth lecture turns to many-body QCD at low x, presenting a new framework for the comprehensive analysis of Deep Inelastic Scattering and hadron collider data - likewise using ML-enhanced Bayesian Inference - to search for evidence of non-linear QCD evolution and gluon saturation.
In the two lectures I will discuss detailed aspects of jet physics for hard probes and how application of machine learning is taking this field to next frontiers.
TBA
This talk highlights the determination of heavy quark transport coefficients—drag and momentum diffusion—within a hot, viscous Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). We incorporate both collisional and radiative energy loss using a quasiparticle model to investigate how shear and bulk viscous corrections influence the thermalization of charm and bottom quarks. Moving beyond the standard Markovian limit (the static environment assumption), we employ an open quantum system approach by accounting for the memory effect of the deconfined medium. With this non-equilibrium framework, we study how the evolution of heavy quark momentum is significantly influenced by the history of its interactions with QCD matter.
Friday, 27 March 2026
In the two lectures I will discuss detailed aspects of jet physics for hard probes and how application of machine learning is taking this field to next frontiers.
Relativistic heavy-ion collisions provide a unique opportunity to study a new state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Hard partons produced in early quantum chromodynamics (QCD) processes in these collisions fragment and hadronize into collimated sprays of final-state hadrons known as jets. While propagating through the QGP, jets lose energy and undergo modifications due to jet-medium interactions. Jets therefore serve as powerful experimental probes for investigating jet-medium interactions and for extracting important information about the microscopic properties of the QGP.
In this talk, I will present recent experimental measurements of various jet observables that are sensitive to jet-medium interactions and discuss the current understanding of medium properties in the context of these observables.
In this talk, I will talk about the non-perturbative potential between a heavy quark and an anti-quark pair in a QCD plasma at finite temperature. Extracting the leading order static potential $V_s(r)$ from the temporal Wilson line correlators we then calculate the spin dependent component $V_{ss}(r)$ at $\mathcal{O}(1/M^2)$, using color-magnetic field insertions. The computations have been performed for quenched QCD, at $1.5$ times the deconfinement temperature $T_d$, on a 4D lattice with spatial extent $N_s=68$ and temporal size $N_\tau=16, 20$. We show that $V_{ss}(r)$ develops an imaginary part at finite temperature, a similar phenomenon observed in the static potential. The spin potential at finite temperature breaks the degeneracy between pseudo-scalar and vector quarkonium states which suggests different bound state energy, thermal decay widths and dissociation temperatures.
TBA
The main focus of the talk will be how non-equilibrium aspects of hot QCD matter (the quark–gluon plasma) produced in heavy-ion collisions affect the properties of heavy quarks.