Heavy ion collisions: collectivity and precision in saturation physics
The main goal of this project is to reinforce and expand a long-lasting collaboration network between research centers of excellence from EU and the USA aimed at addressing fundamental questions in the physics of dense systems produced in high energy collisions of proton-proton (pp), proton-nucleus (pA) and heavy-ion collisions (HICs). The greatest challenge is to understand whether the final state of such a collision (especially when the size of colliding objects is small) has a character of a genuine strongly interacting medium like Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), or whether the observed characteristics (such as correlations between produced particles) can be explained by a non trivial quantum mechanical nature of the colliding objects due to saturation physics.
To meet this challenge we propose a two-pronged approach: on one hand a dedicated study of quantum mechanical effects in the environment of dense partonic  wave function in the saturation regime, and on the other a systematic improvement of the current quantitative approaches, based on Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and studying their phenomenological implications. These goals will be accomplished by means of joint research activities which will be developed through the mobility of individual researchers.

The main research objectives of the proposal are: 

A: Quantifying importance of quantum interference in correlated particle production, specifically concentrating on effects of saturation in the wave function of energetic proton on its quantum properties.

B: Development of a comprehensive theoretical framework to study saturation physics both at leading and next to leading orders in the QCD coupling constant.

C: Phenomenological description of saturation-sensitive observables in pp, pA and HICs.

D: Application of the results of the research to future projects, specifically electron-ion colliders under proposal in the US (the Electron-Ion Collider EIC) and at CERN (the Large Hadron-electron Collider LHeC ).