VIRTUAL Thursday, November 19th , 2020 3:45 – 4:45 p.m. Speaker: Cesar Da Silva P-25 Subatomics Physics LANL “The search of a gluon condensate state of the matter with the LHCb detector in LHC” Abstract: Gluon is the boson responsible for the strong force interactions keeping quarks inside nucleons. Nearly 20 years ago it was found in electron-proton collisions that, as we look towards gluons carrying smaller longitudinal momentum of the proton, their number always increases rapidly. This observation made particle physicists wonder what is the momentum region where the number of gluons stop growing ? If this gluon saturation is observed it may indicate that the gluons start to overlap, perhaps forming a new state of a gluon condensate matter never observed in strong forces. Despite several efforts, only hints of gluon saturation was observed. LANL got involved in the Large Collider Hadron beauty experiment at CERN with the idea to search for gluon saturation and, if it is found, understand what happen with Quantum Cromodynamics in this situation. This seminar will describe the ongoing studies of the data taken in proton-lead collisions by the LHCb, where theorists predict we may find the gluon saturation. The seminar will also tell few stories on surprises we came across during this search and the LANL proposal of a tracking device to measure very soft particles in LHCb.