Speaker
Description
The aim of relativistic heavy ion accelerators is to study nuclear matter under extreme conditions. However, very strong electromagnetic fields for a very short time duration are present in distant collisions with no nuclear contact. Such strong fields can lead to nuclear fragmentation through the excitation of giant resonances or direct dissociation of light nuclei. This process can be used to study nuclear structure properties which are not accessible by other means. The creation of particles is also of interest due to the large cross sections, specially the case of electron-positron pair creation. Meson production and the search for new exotic mesons has been an area of strong interest in recent years. I will discuss the application of the EM fields generated by relativistic heavy ions in a plethora of problems of actual interest in physics.
