Matthew Heffernan

I am a Ph.D. student at the Physics Department of McGill University in the Nuclear Theory group working on aspects of hydrodynamic modeling in heavy-ion collisions. I am also a STEM Graduate Teaching Development Fellow, an organizing committee member of the McGill Physics Hackathon, and VP Communications of the McGill Graduate Association of Physics Students.

When I get the chance, I enjoy working on various side projects, taking photographs around Montreal, skating, playing hockey, and looking for opportunities to go hiking. I also play on one of the departmental intramural hockey teams, the Absolute Zeroes. I am also a violist, having performed as a soloist, member of a small ensemble, and of orchestras in both Scotland and the United States. This musical work involved the east coast premiere of a new work by Mark O'Connor: W&M's Gallery Players present Elevations for String Orchestra by Mark O'Connor; First Movement .

A collection of my photographs may be found here. I additionally spend arguably too much time reading Wikipedia articles; one of my favorites is on the Habeas Corpus Act 1679.

I am a Ph.D. student in the Nuclear Theory group at McGill under the supervision of Charles Gale working on various aspects of modeling hydrodynamic behavior in hot and dense hadronic matter.

What is hot and dense hadronic matter? Hot and dense hadronic matter (also known as Quark-Gluon Plasma) is a phase of matter where what normally makes up atomic nuclei has "melted". This highly energetic phase of matter exhibits collective behavior, allowing it to be modeled as a relativistic fluid. It is possible to produce QGP at particle colliders by colliding atomic nuclei, such as two lead or gold nuclei together at speeds comparable to the speed of light. This is done at terrestrial colliders, such as the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven or the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva.

I have also worked on computational applications in low-energy nuclear systems and aspects of beyond Standard Model physics. This research sought to explore if extra degrees of freedom were present in the immediately post-Big Bang universe. Limits on this exotic physics can be probed using Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, which is how elements were formed in the early universe. Computational tests of variation yield strict limits on variation of "fundamental" Standard Model constants.

I am partially supported at McGill as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Previously, I was a lab marker for the Physics 101 course as well as an exam marker for the Physics 102 course here at McGill. I also led tutorial sessions for Physics 201: Dynamics of Simple Systems. Currently, I am working with Nikolas Provatas as a STEM Graduate Teaching Development Fellow, working to flip the classroom McGill's large Physics 102 course. This involves writing new and challenging questions for students to solve, providing clear solutions, and recording select problem solutions.