Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics Talk: The equation of state of dense nuclear matter from heavy-ion collisions

The equation of state (EOS) of dense nuclear matter has been the center of numerous research efforts over the years. Studies of giant monopole resonances in heavy nuclei indicate that the EOS is soft around the saturation density of nuclear matter. On the other hand, recent analyses of neutron star data strongly suggest that in the cores of neutron stars, where densities may reach several times that of normal nuclear matter, the EOS becomes very stiff — so stiff, in fact, that the speed of sound squared may substantially exceed the conformal limit of 1/3.

In this talk, I will discuss my thesis work in which I proposed a novel way of using higher moments of the baryon number distribution, measured in experiments, to infer the speed of sound in dense nuclear matter created in low-energy heavy-ion collisions. I will also highlight the need for state-of-the-art hadronic transport simulations to draw meaningful conclusions from the experimental data. I will then present the framework I developed to enable comprehensive studies of the influence of the dense nuclear matter EOS on experimental observables, and its potential for playing an important role in uncovering the phase diagram of dense QCD matter.