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Hot Nuclear Matter Featured in Science
Prelude to new RHIC/LHC findings to be presented at Quark Matter 2012
RHIC’s two large experiments, STAR and PHENIX, have multiple detector components and complex electronics for tracking and identifying the particles that fly out after ions collide at nearly the speed of light. Photo Courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory
UPTON, NY, July 19, 2012 — A review article appearing in the July 20, 2012, issue of the journal Science describes groundbreaking discoveries that have emerged from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, synergies with the heavy-ion program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe, and the compelling questions that will drive this research forward on both sides of the Atlantic. With details that help enlighten our understanding of the hot nuclear matter that permeated the early universe, the article is a prelude to the latest findings scientists from both facilities will present at the next gathering of physicists dedicated to this research — Quark Matter 2012, August 12-18 in Washington, D.C.
Barbara Jacak
“Nuclear matter in today’s universe hides inside atomic nuclei and neutron stars,” begin the authors, Barbara Jacak, a physics professor at Stony Brook University and spokesperson for the PHENIX experiment at RHIC, and Berndt Mueller, a theoretical physicist at Duke University. Collisions between heavy ions at machines like RHIC, running since 2000, and more recently, the LHC, make this hidden realm accessible by recreating the extreme conditions of the early universe on a microscopic scale. The temperatures achieved in these collisions — more than 4 trillion degrees Celsius, the hottest ever created in a laboratory — briefly liberate the subatomic quarks and gluons that make up protons and neutrons of ordinary atomic nuclei so scientists can study their properties and interactions. “Quarks and the gluons that hold them together are the building blocks of all the visible …
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