A theory of waves for an ocean of quarks

All protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei in the universe originated from a plasma of quarks and gluons microseconds after the Big Bang. This “fundamental plasma”, artificially recreated in heavy-ion collisions at CERN and Brookhaven, is one of the most strongly interacting liquids in Nature and is created along with enormously strong magnetic fields. Recently, these experiments also revealed its strong vortical structure. Here I propose to develop a theoretical framework for generic strongly interacting plasmas and their electromagnetic and vortical properties, and use this to solve outstanding problems in transport and formation processes of the quark-gluon plasma.