FEATURE · Far-from-Equilibrium ATtractors at Ultra-Relativistic Energies

One of the grand challenges facing the high-energy physics community is understanding the far-from-equilibrium evolution of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). A recent innovation in the theory of far-from-equilbrium systems was the discovery of hydrodynamic attractors to which non-equilibrium solutions of microscopic configurations decay, losing knowledge of their initial conditions well before approaching thermal equilibrium.This project will take the critical step to bring theoretical understanding to the level of complexity required for realistic phenomenology, by fully characterizing the properties of the QCD attractor without resorting to simplifying assumptions done in the current preliminary studies. This will be done via the inclusion of fermionic degrees of freedom and by relaxing simplifying spatial symmetries. This proposal is possible due to the mixing of perspectives and skills, from Dr. Alexander Soloviev's (the researcher) deep knowledge of attractors and the physics of heavy ion collisions, and Prof. Sašo Grozdanov's (the supervisor) extensive expertise of magnetohydrodynamics and non-equilibrium field theory methods. The researcher will undergo training at the University of Ljubljana, cultivating the necessary analytic and numerical skills to meet the research objectives of the project and advance his career. The new insight gained will be applied to the phenomenological context to elevate the dynamical freeze-out process into a far-from-equilibrium process, thus leading to the full exploitation of data at experiments in the Large Hadron Collider and Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The attained knowledge will be also used to probe the attractor near the phase transition, providing vital insight into searches for the QCD critical point. Furthermore, the gained insight into attractors will provide an avenue to integrate magnetohydrodynamics into descriptions relevant for heavy ion collisions.