Jets of hadrons produced at high-energy colliders provide experimental access to the dynamics of asymptotically free quarks and gluons and their confinement into hadrons. Motivated by recent developments in conformal field theory, we show that questions of interest in collider physics can be reformulated as the study of correlation functions of a specific class of light-ray operators and their associated operator product expansion (OPE). We show that multi-point correlation functions of these operators can be measured in real collider data, allowing us to experimentally verify the scaling properties associated with the OPE, and providing new insights into the dynamics of the confinement transition, the properties of the quark gluon plasma, and beyond.
Bio:
Professor Moult obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia in 2011, and his Ph.D in theoretical particle physics from MIT in 2016. He was then a Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley/ LBL (2016-2019) and SLAC/ Stanford (2019-2021) before joining the Yale Physics Department in 2021.
Professor Moult's research focuses on advancing quantum field theory techniques to describe high energy particle physics experiments, from Dark Matter detection to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His work emphasizes the use of Effective Field Theories to simplify complex real-world calculations into universal quantum field theory problems. Additionally, he is interested in leveraging theoretical advances to enable innovative experimental strategies, such as his leading role in developing Jet Substructure, which utilizes patterns in energy flow during LHC collisions to maximize the potential for discovering new physics and better understanding the theory of strong interactions.
Tencent Meeting: 325-976-160
Prof. Huaxing Zhu