Researchers Identify Edge Acceleration as Key Driver of Quark-Gluon Plasma Expansion
A team from Fudan University has shown that strong acceleration at the borders of quark-gluon plasma significantly influences its explosive growth and thermodynamic properties.
When atomic nuclei collide at near-light speeds, they briefly form quark-gluon plasma, the universe’s hottest fluid. A Fudan University group led by Yu-Gang Ma and Xu-Guang Huang applied two widely used transport models, AMPT and UrQMD, together with Gaussian smearing to convert particle data into continuous fluid fields. Their analysis across energies from 3.5 GeV to 2.76 TeV showed that the strongest transverse acceleration consistently appears at the plasma’s outer boundary, reaching several hundred MeV.
This edge acceleration arises from rapid pressure decline and low enthalpy density, amplifying the effect via the relativistic Euler equation. The authors propose that such acceleration may introduce a new “acceleration axis” in the QCD phase diagram, influencing chiral and confinement transitions and generating novel spin-polarization signals. Future work will incorporate realistic hydrodynamics and seek experimental signatures, such as hyperon spin patterns, to validate the theoretical predictions.
Why it matters
Understanding acceleration in quark-gluon plasma could reshape how scientists probe the early universe and the fundamental forces governing matter.
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