"For the past quarter-century, scientists using a particle collider on Long Island have been smashing the nuclei of gold atoms together at nearly the speed of light to create the hottest matter ever made on Earth. The soup of particles born from the collision mimics the universe as it was just after the big bang. Now researchers have at last accurately measured the temperature of this matter for the first time."
"After the gold nuclei crashed, the protons and neutrons within them melted into a seething cloud of quark-gluon plasma. This inferno re-creates conditions from the dawn of time, when the universe was too hot and dense to form regular atomsor even their ingredients such as protons and neutrons. Instead the primordial cosmic soup would have been a blazing mess of the fundamental particles called quarks, as well as gluons, which carry the strong force that binds atomic nuclei together."
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory use the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to smash gold nuclei at nearly light speed, producing quark-gluon plasma that replicates early-universe conditions. The collisions melt protons and neutrons into a seething cloud of quarks and gluons, recreating a state too hot and dense for ordinary atoms. Each plasma droplet exists for only a split second while it cools and emits particles, including photons. Researchers operating the STAR detector on RHIC have now accurately measured the temperature of this primordial matter for the first time, advancing understanding of fundamental strong-force physics.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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