The group is led by Prof. Evan Finch. Other current group members, past and present, include Richie Magnotti (Honors Thesis), Mike Schriefer, Steve Murray, Matt Andersen, and Ricardo Vivar.

Current Research

In the earliest moments of the universe, when it was so hot that atoms couldn’t exist and even protons and neutrons couldn’t exist, what was the universe like? We study that Quark-Gluon Plasma state as part of the STAR Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

We are particularly interested in how the strong nuclear force might behave differently at these high temperatures, perhaps even showing different symmetry properties, through the Chiral Magnetic Effect.

Notable Recent Publications

L.E. Finch and S.J. Murray, “Investigating local parity violation in heavy-ion collisions using Λ helicity,” Physical Review C 96, 044911 (2018).

STAR Collaboration. “Global ΛΛ hyperon polarization in nuclear collisions: evidence for the most vortical fluid,” Nature 548, 62 (2017).

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