Mobile Phone: +19257246463

Background and Research Interests

Ron Soltz’s thesis research focused on measuring space-time evolution of relativistic heavy ion collisions to constrain the properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) and motivated his later work on calculating the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) equation of state for insertion into hydrodynamic models of the QGP. He has worked on the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment (PHENIX) at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and is now working the sPHENIX successor experiment. His interest in comparing theoretical models has led to his participation in the Jet Energy-Loss Tomography with a Statistically and Computationally Advanced Program Envelope (JETSCAPE) collaboration, which seeks to constrain jet energy loss parameters through model-to-data comparisons.

Soltz’s research interests include relativistic heavy ion physics, QCD thermodynamics, and topics in nuclear security related to non-proliferation and treaty verification. His interest in nuclear security has led to work on detecting nuclear material through neutron time correlations and work on the satellite detection of nuclear detonations.

Ph.D., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994

M.A., Physics, Columbia University, 1989

B.S., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1987

1. S. Cao, et al., [JETSCAPE] Multistage Monte-Carlo simulation of jet modification in a static medium, Physical Review C 96, 024909, 2017.
2. J. S. Moreland and R. A. Soltz, Hydrodynamic simulations of relativistic heavy-ion collisions with different lattice QCD calculations of the equation of state, Physical Review C 93, 044913, 2016.
3. R.A. Soltz, C. DeTar, F. Karsch, S. Munkerjee, and P. Vranas, Lattice QCD Thermodynamics with Physical Quark Masses, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 65, 379, 2015.
4. T. Bhattacharya, et al., [HotQCD] QCD Phase Transition with Chiral Quarks and Physical Quark Masses, Physical Review Letters 113, 082001, 2014.
5. A. Bazavov, et al., [HotQCD] The equation of state in (2+1)-flavor QCD, Physical Review D 90, 094503, 2014.
6. R.A. Soltz, et al., Constraining the initial temperature and shear viscosity in a hybrid hydrodynamic model of sNN=200 GeV Au+Au collisions using pion spectra, elliptic flow, and femtoscopic radii, Physical Review C 87, 044901, 2013.
7. A. Afanasiev, et al., [PHENIX] Kaon interferometric probes of space-time evolution in Au+Au collisions at root-sNN = 200 GeV, Physical Review Letters. 103, 142301, 2009.
8. R.A. Soltz, et al., [BNL-E910] Centrality dependence of the thermal excitation-energy deposition in 8-15-GeV/c hadron-Au reactions, Physical Review C 79, 034697, 2009.
9. M. Lisa, S. Pratt, R.A. Soltz, U. Wiedemann, Femtoscopy in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, 55, 357, 2005.
10. K. Adcox, et al., [PHENIX] Formation of Dense Partonic Matter in Relativistic Nucleus-nucleus Collisions: Experimental evaluation by the PHENIX Collaboration, Nuclear Physics A 757, 184, 2005.

• PLS Mentor Awards, 2013 & 2010
• Global Security Award for contributions to Passive Detection of Shielded SNM, 2009
• Gordon Bell Prize for Special Achievement: BlueGene Supercomputer and QCD, 2006
• Physics Directorate Award for contributions to PHENIX analysis leading to QGP discovery, 2005