Carlos Salgado, Director of the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE), appointed Assistant Director of the Spain’s National Centre for Particle Physics

Carlos Salgado, Director of the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE). | Photograph: Elena Mora

Carlos Salgado, Director of the Galician Institute of High Energy (IGFAE), a centre run jointly by the University of Santiago de Compostela and the Galician autonomous government (Xunta de Galicia) and a member of the CIGUS Network, has been appointed Assistant Director of Spain’s National Centre for Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics (CPAN). The main objective of this scientific group, created within the framework of CONSOLIDER – Ingenio 2010, is to provide a stable framework for collaboration between the partner institutions in the field of research, innovation and technological development in Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics. The renewal of the management team was completed with the appointment of María José Costa, a CSIC researcher at the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC), as Director.

Carlos A. Salgado is a theoretical physicist, professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Director of the Galician Institute of High Physics (IGFAE). He was also Scientific Director of the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence between 2017 and 2021. For the last two years, he has been a member of the Executive Committee at the National Centre for Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics (CPAN), representing the area of Theoretical Physics.

Professor Salgado’s main research interests lie in the field of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) under conditions of high densities or temperatures, as well as nuclear parton distributions. His recent work has focused on the investigation of the quantum coherence of colour in two QCD jets – high-energy particle jets originating from quark and gluon radiation-, and the use of this information to determine the fastest thermalisation processes observed in nature.

Salgado has received two European Research Council projects:  Hot and dense QCD in the LHC era (Starting Grant – Consolidator steam E2012-2017) and Yoctosecond imaging of QCD collectivity using jet observables (Advanced Grant 2019-2025).