Quark matter
By slamming heavy nuclei into each other at velocities near the speed of light, physicists expect to produce a fireball like the one in which the universe began. They believe that if the collisions are energetic enough, protons, neutrons, and other nuclear ingredients will separate into quarks - the elementary particles of all matter - and gluons, the massless carriers of the force that binds quarks together. This quark-gluon plasma, or quark matter would simulate the conditions a few microseconds after the universe began in a stupendous explosion dubbed the big bang, some 20 billion years ago. This so called little bang will take place in accelerators capable of colliding nuclei at energies that compress and heat them to three or more times their normal density. Temperatures in such experiments would reach two thousand trillion (2 x 10/sup 12/) degrees Kelvin. Researchers intend to reverse this process in powerful machines such as the Super Proton Synchrotron at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland, and the alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, and at a large collider not yet built. Relicts of the big bang - atoms ranging in mass from oxygen to uranium - will serve as projectiles and targets. Physicists envision collisions that will release both quarks and gluons from confinement in nuclei.
- OSTI ID:
- 6014053
- Journal Information:
- Mosaic; (United States), Vol. 18:2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
HEAVY ION REACTIONS
MULTIPLE PRODUCTION
QUARK MATTER
BROOKHAVEN AGS
CERN SPS SYNCHROTRON
EXPERIMENT PLANNING
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
QUARKS
REVIEWS
SHOWER COUNTERS
SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER
ACCELERATORS
CHARGED-PARTICLE REACTIONS
CYCLIC ACCELERATORS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
MATTER
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
PLANNING
POSTULATED PARTICLES
RADIATION DETECTORS
STORAGE RINGS
SYNCHROTRONS
645201* - High Energy Physics- Particle Interactions & Properties-Theoretical- General & Scattering Theory