quark-gluon plasma tagged posts

The findings could redefine the kinds of particles that were abundant in the early universe. Physicists have found evidence of X particles in the quark-gluon plasma produced in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, based near Geneva, Switzerland.

In the first millionths of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a roiling, trillion-degree plasma of quarks and gluons – elementary particles that briefly glommed together in countless combinations before cooling and settling int...

A visual of data collected by the Compact Muon Solenoid detector during a proton-lead collision at the Large Hadron Collider in 2016. Credit: Image courtesy of Thomas McCauley/CERN

Physicists probe exotic state of nuclear matter at Europe’s LHC. Findings from Rice University physicists working at Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are providing new insight about an exotic state of matter, “quark-gluon plasma” that occurs when protons and neutrons melt. LHC is able to smash together the nuclei of atoms at nearly the speed of the light. The energy released in these collisions is vast and allows physicists to recreate the hot, dense conditions that existed in the early universe...

The figure shows how a small, elongated drop of quark-gluon plasma is formed when two atomic nuclei hit each other a bit off center. The angular distribution of the emitted particles makes it possible to determine the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, including the viscosity. Credit: State University of New York

Researchers collided lead atoms with extremely high energy in the 27 km long particle accelerator. The primordial soup is a quark-gluon plasma and researchers have measured its liquid properties with great accuracy at the LHC’s top energy. A few billionths of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was made up extremely hot and dense primordial soup of quarks and gluons. By colliding lead nuclei at a record-high 5...

Image courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory Initial hot spots created by collisions of one, two, and three-particle ions with much larger gold ions (top row). Expected patterns if the collisions are creating tiny hot spots of the primordial soup, or quark-gluon plasma.

Surprisingly, smaller particles colliding with large nuclei appear to produce tiny droplets of quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Recent results show that the tiny droplets behave like a liquid not the expected gas. The results support the case that these small particles produce tiny drops of the primordial soup.

Smashing large atomic nuclei, containing protons and neutrons, together at close to the speed of light re-creates the conditions of the very early universe...