Collisions of relativistic heavy ions, such as gold and lead, have been used for decades to explore a hot, deconfined medium of quarks and gluons known as the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). In the last few years, there has also been great interest in searching for similar effects in collisions of lighter ions. In this talk I will review the motivation and historical context which gave rise to the push to examine light ion collisions. Recent results examining oxygen-oxygen and neon-neon collisions using the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be discussed. These analyses indicate that QGP is also produced in these collisions, implying that light ion collisions provide a promising avenue for further studies of the QGP in intermediately-sized collision systems. Avenues for future exploration in the context of future LHC Runs, and connections to the physics program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) will also be mentioned.
Prof. Baty is a high-energy nuclear physicist working on the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and the ePIC experiment that is being built at Brookhaven National Lab. He did his undergraduate studies at Texas A&M University and subsequently received his PhD from MIT, where he was a school of science Fellow. After graduating, he moved to Houston where he spent four years at Rice University as a Rice Academy Postdoctoral Fellow before joining the physics faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago in 2023. His research interests have led him to analyze a wide variety of high energy and nuclear physics datasets, ranging from electron-positron collisions to heavy ion collisions. In his spare time he enjoys playing the cello and watching sci-fi movies.