We propose experimental studies of nuclear collisions at speeds up to 99.995% of the speed of light. We have a multifaceted role in the 74-institution STAR experiment at Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The ultimate goal is to uncover the role of quarks and gluons in these collisions. Our research in novel aspects of quantum entanglement and in the fundamental question of whether quarks carry the conserved baryon number in strong nuclear interactions each hold particular promise for high-impact discoveries during the proposed project. Another imminent high-profile result is our ability to determine the temperature of the early quark-matter stage of nuclear collisions, a measurement that has previously been especially elusive. Our physics focus includes the study of particles containing a rare heavy quark or fundamental topology, electromagnetic probes and angular asymmetries among the ejected particles when the collision energy is varied. 

Some of our effort is devoted to detector-related operation and software of importance to the entire STAR collaboration. Our group has just joined the ePIC Collaboration in exploring the next generation Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a successor to RHIC, whose operation ends in 2025. Members of our group actively participate in the hardware for the EIC (AC-LGAD Time-of-Flight Detector) and simulations.