Cooking with Quarks and Gluons: Recipes from the String Theory Kitchen Clifford Johnson, Professor of Physics, University of Southern California

Understanding the phase structure of nuclear matter is a fundamental and ongoing challenge in physics, with applications from fundamental particle and nuclear physics to astrophysics. As a theoretical challenge it places us at the edge of what is readily attainable with field theory (quantum chromodynamics) and calls for a diversity of techniques and even a re-examination of our understanding of the true nature of non-perturbative field theory. String theory and (perhaps unexpectedly) gravitational physics may be emerging as the best way of addressing several of the physical questions that arise in various regimes - qualitatively and, increasingly, quantitatively. I describe key features of this growing toolbox of techniques from string theory, some simple but instructive models from current research, and consider prospects for the future.