Larry McLerran, Senior Scientist & Group Leader, RIKEN BNL Center

Biography

My research is on the theory of matter at very high energy density. I was one of the first to propose that high energy heavy ion collisions might make a Quark Gluon Plasma, and showed how this might happen using Bjorken's space-time picture of hadronic collisions. With Ben Svetitsky, I did the first Monte Carlo simulation of high temperature QCD and showed that there is a de-confining phase transition. With Peter Armold, I also did seminal work on baryon number violation in electroweak theory.

More recently, with Rob Pisarski, we invented the concept of Quarkyonic Matter: Matter at very high baryon density that has properties of both free quarks and confined mesons and baryons.

With Raju Venugopalan, we invented the idea of the Color Glass Condensate, the matter that controls the high energy limit of QCD.

With Alex Kovner and Heribert Weigert, we invented the ideas behind the Glasma, matter that makes the transition between the the Color Glass Condensate and the Quark Gluon Plasma in collisions of strongly interacting particles. I am now working on the properties of the Glasma, how it thermalizes and the possibility that it may form gluons Bose condensates. I also have written a number of biographical sketches of theoretical physics, and written a number of anecdotes related to my life as a physicist.

Other Affiliations

• Han Jensen Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Heidelberg
• Liu Lian Shou Professor of Theoretical Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan

Recent Publications

• Bose--Einstein Condensation and Thermalization of the Quark Gluon Plasma. Jean-Paul Blaizot, Francois Gelis, Jinfeng Liao, Larry McLerran, Raju Venugopalan, Jul 2011. 19pp.
• Interweaving Chiral Spirals. Toru Kojo, Yoshimasa Hidaka, Kenji Fukushima, Larry McLerran, Robert D. Pisarski, RIKEN-MP-24, Jul 2011. 52pp.
• Saturation the color glass condensate and the glasma: What have we learned from RHIC? Proceedings, Workshop, Upton, Brookhaven, USA, May 10-12, 2010. Larry McLerran, (ed.), James Dunlop, (ed.), Dave Morrison, (ed.), Raju Venugopalan, (ed.), (Brookhaven) 2011. 256pp. Published in Nucl. Phys. A854 (2011) 1-256
• Summary of Theoretical Physics for ICPAQGP 2010. L. McLerran, (RIKEN BNL & Brookhaven) May 2011. Prepared for 6th International Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of Quark Gluon Plasma (ICPAQGP 2010), Goa, India, 6-10 Dec 2010.

Larry McLerran