Title: Vortices, A New Diagnostic for Phase Transition In Dense Matter
Abstract: Nuclear theory is currently going through an exciting phase in anticipation of the wealth of data expected from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and gravitational waves in LIGO. One of the major areas of interest in nuclear theory today is the study of the origin of elements or nucleosynthesis. The process of nucleosynthesis takes place in extreme events like the explosion of supernovae and collision of neutron stars which can harbor matter at such high densities that atomic nuclei dissolve producing a fermi liquid of nucleons. In order to make progress in understanding nucleosynthesis hence, it is of utmost importance to understand the properties of such dense matter as well as accurately model its equation of state. In this talk I discuss the various patterns of organizations expected to arise in dense baryonic matter and how modern developments in topological phase transitions in condensed matter systems combined with perturbative techniques in quantum chromodynamics, the theory of strong interactions, can inform our knowledge in this regard.