International Workshop "Unlocking the QCD phase diagram"

The International Workshop "Unlocking the QCD phase diagram" will take place September 7 - 9, 2026, at the Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Haus, Darmstadt, Germany.
This special event is dedicated to celebrating the 80th birthday of Prof. Peter Braun-Munzinger.

The workshop starts on Monday, September 7, at lunchtime and finishes on Wednesday, September 9 after the afternoon coffee break. 

Prof. Peter Braun-Munzinger is a prominent German physicist known for his work in experimental and phenomenological nuclear physics. He has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions, in particular to the study of the quark-gluon plasma and the statistical hadronization of particles produced in high-energy nuclear collisions.

Prof. Braun-Munzinger earned his Diploma in physics from the Heidelberg University in 1970 and completed his doctoral degree there in 1972. He began his scientific career at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, before moving to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he progressed rapidly through the academic ranks to become full professor in 1982. During this period, he was also closely associated with the heavy-ion research program at Brookhaven National Laboratory, contributing to pioneering experiments at the AGS accelerator.

His work in the 1980s and 1990s on relativistic nuclear collisions, including his leadership as spokesperson of major AGS experiments, provided key insights into particle production mechanisms and laid important groundwork for the later discovery and characterization of the quark-gluon plasma. In particular, he was one of the central figures in establishing the statistical model as a powerful tool for describing hadron yields in high-energy nuclear collisions.

In 1996, he returned to Germany as a Leading Scientist at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research and Professor of Physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt. There, he played a major role in shaping the scientific program of relativistic heavy-ion research and in the development of future facilities. He also served as a member of the GSI Directorate, contributing to the institute’s scientific and technical development.

Throughout his career, Prof. Braun-Munzinger has been deeply involved in major experimental collaborations at CERN. One of his most notable roles has been in the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, where he contributed both to detector development, most prominently as project leader of the Time Projection Chamber, and to the interpretation of experimental results. He also served as Chair of the ALICE Collaboration Board from 2011 to 2016 and was a member of the CERN Science Policy Committee.

In addition to his research, he has held several prominent leadership and editorial positions, including Scientific Director of the ExtreMe Matter Institute (EMMI), Senior Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and Supervisory Editor of Nuclear Physics A. He has also served as Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters. He is a member of the Academia Europaea and a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also been affiliated with Heidelberg University as Honorary Professor.

His contributions to the field have been widely recognized through numerous honors, including the Lise Meitner Prize and the Stern-Gerlach Medal. He is widely regarded as an internationally renowned and influential figure in the field of high-energy nuclear physics.

Participation is exclusively by invitation.

For participation registration is strictly required.