Lattice Gauge Theory
Projects in this area study lattice gauge theory by developing numerical simulations on high performance computers.
Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) describes the interactions between quarks and gluons as they compose particles such as the proton and neutron. Lattice gauge theory provides the only comprehensive method to extract, with controlled systematic errors, first-principles predictions from QCD for a wide range of observable phenomena.
By discretising space-time onto a hypercubic lattice, we are able to directly study the properties of this highly non-perturbative theory. These numerical simulations are extremely challenging, requiring state of the art high performance computing techniques and the use of the world’s fastest supercomputers.
Having such powerful tools on hand allows for the study of a variety of interesting phenomena relevant to international experimental efforts in particle and nuclear physics, such as excited state spectroscopy, hadronic interactions, probing the structure of the proton and other hadronic particles, hadronic decays, and the vacuum properties of QCD.
In addition, visualising the massive amounts of data created in lattice simulations provides deep insight into the fundamental mechanisms of QCD and hadron structure.
The theoretical physics research are primarily carried out under the umbrella of the ARC Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter (CSSM).