PhD Colloquium: Leticia Cunqueiro Mendez (U. of Rome "La Sapienza")

In heavy-ion collisions at ultra-relativistic energies, nuclear matter is subject to extreme conditions of temperature and density. A crossover happens, and nuclear matter transits into an almost perfect liquid that exhibits properties similar to those of a quantum fluid, the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). In a manner similar to the Rutherford experiment, where alpha particles were short-range probes of the atom, revealing the existence of the nucleus, we use energetic quarks and gluons as high-resolution probes of the QGP to study its microscopic structure. I will discuss the status and main open questions of the field.