The at CERN is a facility that provides collisions of proton-proton, proton-lead, and lead-lead beams for four experimental stations: , ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb. Our focus is on the ALICE experiment, involving around 1800 researchers and engineers from 170 institutes in 40 countries. We have been members of ALICE since November 1997. ALICE activities in Jyväskylä are part of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Quark Matter at the Finnish Academy.
ALICE studies the properties of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of matter where partons are no longer confined inside hadrons. Matter undergoes a deconfinement phase transition from hadronic matter to QGP at temperatures around 150 MeV. This transition happened in the early Universe a few microseconds after the Big Bang.
ALICE can track and identify particles with low transverse momenta, allowing detailed studies of the properties of the QGP. Current research focuses on investigating the detailed properties of hot and dense strongly interacting matter, including the fluidity of the matter measured by the shear viscosity to entropy ratio. Recent results show that the QGP is the most perfect liquid studied in the laboratory so far. The large statistics and precise data from the LHC will contribute to a better understanding of the properties and evolution of the QCD matter created in high-energy collisions.
In the ALICE experiment, our group has responsibilities in physics analysis, detector hardware, and GRID computing. Please find a more detailed description of our current research, personnel, and recent publications below.
