Bio

Long-term dedication to experimental research in high-energy heavy-ion collisions has led to a number of original contributions in the study of QCD phase structure and the search for the QCD critical point. Together with collaborators from the United States and India, the scale for  the QCD phase diagram was determined, with findings published in Science and recognized as one of the "Top Ten Physics Breakthroughs of 2011" by the renowned UK-based science website 《Physics World》.
In 2025, he was awarded the National Natural Science Foundation Youth Fund Category A (formerly the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars), and in 2021, he received the Excellent Young Scientists Fund from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He has been included in the Stanford University-compiled list of the world's top 2% most-cited researchers (career-long impact).
In 2018, he received the inaugural Brookhaven National Laboratory Merit Award in the United States, and in 2023, he supervised a doctoral student in winning the Brookhaven National Laboratory Thesis Award. He previously served as co-convenor of the Bulk Correlation Physics Working Group in the RHIC-STAR experiment (2018–2023) and currently leads the Central China Normal University team in the FAIR-CBM experiment.

Education

·2006 – 2011, Ph.D., Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)

·2009 – 2011, Joint Ph.D. program, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA

·2002 – 2006, B.S., Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)

Professional Experience

·2019 – Present, Professor, Central China Normal University

·2016 – 2017, Visiting Scholar, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

·2013 – 2019, Associate Professor, Central China Normal University

·2011 – 2013, Postdoctoral Fellow, Central China Normal University

Honors and Awards

·2024, Paper selected as a top academic paper in China’s elite scientific journals

·2022, First Prize for Outstanding Achievements, Hubei Physical Society

·2022, Selected for the Hubei Postdoctoral Excellence Tracking Program

·2021, Most Influential Paper Award,Chinese Physics C, Chinese Physical Society

·2020, Special Award for Paper,Nuclear Science and Techniques

·2018, First Brookhaven National Laboratory Merit Award, USA

·2012, First Prize for Outstanding Youth Paper, 7th "Morning Light Cup," High Energy Physics Division, Chinese Physical Society

Recent Publications (Last 5 Years)

1. STAR Collaboration (Principal Author), "Production of protons and light nuclei in Au+Au collisions at 3 GeV with the STAR detector,"Phys. Rev. C110, 054911 (2024).

2. STAR Collaboration (Principal Author), "Beam Energy Dependence of Triton Production and Yield Ratio in Au + Au Collisions at RHIC,"Phys. Rev. Lett.130, 202301 (2023).

3. STAR Collaboration (Principal Author), "Measurements of Proton High-Order Cumulants in 3 GeV Au + Au Collisions and Implications for the QCD Critical Point,"Phys. Rev. Lett.128, 202303 (2022).

4. Xiaofeng Luo, Qun Wang, Pengfei Zhuang, and Nu Xu (Editors),Properties of QCD Matter at High Baryon Density, Science Press and Springer, 2022, ISBN-13: 9789811944406.

5. STAR Collaboration (Principal Author), "Nonmonotonic Energy Dependence of Net-Proton Number Fluctuations,"Phys. Rev. Lett.126, 092301 (2021).

Representative Publications

1. X. Luo, Nu Xu, "Search for the QCD Critical Point with Fluctuations of Conserved Quantities in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions at RHIC: An Overview,"Nucl. Sci. Tech.28, 112 (2017).

2. STAR Collaboration (Principal Author), "Energy Dependence of Moments of Net-Proton Multiplicity Distributions at RHIC,"Phys. Rev. Lett.112, 032302 (2014).

3. X. Luo, "Error Estimation for Moment Analysis in Heavy-Ion Collision Experiment,"J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys.39, 025008 (2012).

4. S. Gupta, X. Luo, B. Mohanty, H. G. Ritter, N. Xu, "Scale for the Phase Diagram of Quantum Chromodynamics,"Science332, 1525 (2011).

5. STAR Collaboration (Principal Author), "Higher Moments of Net Proton Multiplicity Distributions at RHIC,"Phys. Rev. Lett.105, 022302 (2010).