We are a research group located in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Our research focus is in the realm of experimental high-energy heavy-ion physics. We are actively engaged in research within the STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) located at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of this research is to study how matter behaves under the extremes of temperature and pressure produced in high energy collisions of heavy ions. It is believed that these collisions serve to recreate the conditions shortly after the Big Bang. In particular, a new state of matter called the Quark Gluon Plasma may be created. Our research in CMS is strengthened by being part of the broader US-based high energy research program and UIC’s close proximity to FermiLab and the LHC Physics Center for CMS research. In the past, our members have worked on the PHOBOS experiment at RHIC and the E917 experiment at the AGS.
Our research is funded primarily through the Nuclear Physics Program in the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy. The high-energy heavy-ion physics research effort at UIC originated in 1991 and has been going strongly ever since. The group is currently led by UIC faculty members Olga Evdokimov, David Hofman, and Zhenyu Ye. UIC is also home to a heavy-ion theory group led by faculty members Misha Stephanov and Ho-Ung Yee.