The project is funded by a 10 million kroner Villum Young Investigator grant with the title "Thermodynamics of Strongly Coupled Quantum Field Theories", which is running from October 2019 - September 2024.

The grant will finance the recipient, two postdocs and one PhD student.

In the first, extremely hot split seconds our universe existed, the elementary particles quarks and gluons existed freely in an exotic state known as the quark-gluon plasma. Shortly after though, when the universe expanded and cooled down, they started being confined to form the nuclei of the atoms that surround us.

Today, the quark-gluon plasma is created and analyzed experimentally in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The interactions of quarks and gluons are described by a quantum field theory called Quantum Chromo Dynamics. This quantum field theory is strongly coupled, rendering traditional methods for its theoretic understanding inapplicable.

The aim of this project is to develop new theoretical methods to understand the thermodynamics of strongly coupled quantum field theories in general, and the quark-gluon plasma and its transition to ordinary matter in particular.

Matthias Wilhelm, Assistant professor
Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology
Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 København Ø
Email: matthias.wilhelm@nbi.ku.dk