Physical Society Colloquium

Classical fields, quantum anomalies, and relativistic heavy ions

Dmitri Kharzeev

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Modern theory of strong interactions, Quantum Chromo-Dynamics, states that the dynamics of confined color fields is responsible for a variety of physical phenomena in the Universe. However a complete theoretical picture describing this dynamics is still lacking.

I will argue that heavy ion accelerators bring us to the new frontiers of physical knowledge by creating strong color fields and very high densities of partons, at which qualitatively new phenomena emerge. I will discuss the implications of these results for the physics of strong interactions and cosmology.