CERN Generates Quark-Gluon Plasma Using Tiny Oxygen and Neon Collisions
Researchers at CERN have produced quark-gluon plasma by colliding light nuclei of oxygen-16 and neon-20, demonstrating that the primordial state can be created in much smaller collisions than previously thought.
CERN scientists have succeeded in forming quark-gluon plasma by smashing together light nuclei—oxygen-16 and neon-20—marking the smallest collisions known to produce this early-universe state. Published in Physical Review Letters, the study reports that despite the modest mass of these nuclei, the collisions emitted signatures matching those of the hot, dense plasma that filled the cosmos a millionth of a second after the big bang.
This achievement lowers the threshold for the size of atomic nuclei capable of generating the plasma, which was previously limited to heavy elements such as lead. You Zhou, a researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute and co-author of the paper, explained that the plasma briefly expanded like a fluid before cooling back into ordinary particles. The result provides a new experimental platform to probe the fundamental conditions that caused matter to transition into this extreme phase. Researchers hope the insight will clarify how the primordial plasma evolved into the matter that makes up the observable universe today.
Why it matters
It shows scientists can study the universe’s earliest state with far smaller, more accessible experiments.
In this story
