Relativistic Heavy Ion Group well-represented at Hard Probes 2026 conference

The Wright Lab Relativistic Heavy Ion Group (RHIG) was well-represented at the 13th International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2026) conference in Nashville, TN from June 22-26. The conference was focused on experimental and theoretical developments on perturbative probes of hot and dense QCD matter as studied in high-energy nucleus-nucleus, proton-nucleus and proton-proton collisions. 

RHIG participants included Horace D. Taft Professor of Physics Helen Caines, assistant professor Laura Havener, associate research scientist Isaac Mooney, postdoctoral associate Zoltán Varga, and graduate students Sierra Cantway, Ryan Hamilton, Morgan Knuesel, and Emily Pottebaum, as well as recent Wright Lab alum Andrew Tamis ‘26 (now a postdoc at Vanderbilt University).  

Hamilton won a best poster prize, which provided him the opportunity to give a flash talk in the plenary session. Additionally, Caines was a member of the International Advisory Committee for the conference and served as a session chair.

Hamilton said, “The conference was a great opportunity to connect with old friends and meet new colleagues in the field. The week was full of celebrations for groupmates’ successes, excitement for newly released results, and that specific kind of nervousness that only comes with presenting one’s own work.” 

Hamilton continued, “I left feeling continually more grateful to be a part of this community of great friends who bond over a shared love of exploring the complex unknown!” 

The titles of the RHIG talks and posters are listed below. 

Plenary talks

• Havener: Experimental review of jet substructure and energy-energy correlators 
• Hamilton: Flash Talk 5 - Probing the Dead Cone Effect with D0-tagged Jet Energy Correlators in STAR 

Oral presentations

• Mooney, on behalf of the STAR collaboration: Observation of jet quenching in O+O collisions at  𝑠√=200s=200 GeV with the STAR experiment at RHIC

• Varga, on behalf of the ALICE collaboration: Mapping jet substructure with the Lund Plane and time re-clustering in pp collisions with ALICE 
• Cantway, on behalf of the ALICE collaboration: Probing jet-hadrochemistry modifications with measurements of identified particles in jets and the underlying event in pp and Pb–Pb collisions with ALICE 

Poster presentations

• Hamilton, on behalf of the STAR collaboration: Probing the Dead Cone Effect with 𝐷0-tagged Jet Energy Correlators in STAR 
• Knuesel: Time-Based Reclustering for Identifying Early Jet Splittings in pp Collisions with ALICE 
• Pottebaum, on behalf of the STAR collaboration: Measurement of the Lund jet plane in collisions at 𝑠√=200s=200 GeV with STAR