ALICE Creates Quark-Gluon Plasma With 16O and 20Ne Nuclei at CERN
Updated
Updated · sflorg.com · Aug 20
ALICE Creates Quark-Gluon Plasma With 16O and 20Ne Nuclei at CERN
3 articles · Updated · sflorg.com · Aug 20
Summary
Oxygen-16 and neon-20 collisions at near light-speed produced quark-gluon plasma, showing the primordial state of matter can form from much smaller nuclei than the lead ions long thought necessary.
Particle tracks from the short-lived plasma also mapped the nuclei’s geometry: oxygen collisions yielded rounder flow patterns, while neon produced a bowling-pin-like signature.
The ALICE team says that link between nuclear shape and particle motion could turn high-energy collisions into a new tool for probing nuclear structure and the strong force.
Published in Physical Review Letters, the work pushes the lower-size boundary for plasma formation and sets up tests with even lighter nuclei such as helium-4 to find the absolute limit.