The phases of nuclear matter

The primary research area in my research group is the investigation of Quantum Field Theories, such as Quantum Chromodynamics, the theory of quarks and gluons. Although the theory is well defined, in certain circumstances it is very hard to calculate predicitions of the theory without makeing certain hard to control approximations. Such a circumstance is for exmaple the thermodynamics of QCD for non-zero baryon density which is needed to describe the core of neutron stars. The understanding of QCD matter in such state is needed to describe the structure neutron stars (for example through the mass-radius relation), and also to understand gravitational wave signals from collisions of neutron stars. A similar hard to access area is non-equilibrium Quantum-Field theory, which is needed to understand e.g. the time evolution in the first few fm/c of heavy-ion collisions, describing how the hot QCD matter equilibrates, tunneling events in the early universe seeding phase transitions, etc. In my research group we search for potential solutions to these hard problems (often through simplified models) with innovative solution methods such as the Complex Langevin method, as well as carry out various studies of QFTs though the use of lattice discretised versions of the theory in question, with the help of computers.