Relativistic heavy-ion collisions constitute a research area focused on studying strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions of temperature and energy density by colliding heavy nuclei (such as Au or Pb) at relativistic energies in accelerators like RHIC and the LHC. The field aims to create and characterize the quark–gluon plasma, probing deconfinement, chiral symmetry restoration, and transport properties of QCD matter. It integrates experimental observables (e.g., flow coefficients, jet quenching, electromagnetic probes, strangeness enhancement) with relativistic hydrodynamics, lattice QCD, and effective theories to constrain the QCD phase diagram and the equation of state relevant to the early universe and compact astrophysical objects.
Scientists have demonstrated a new way to use high-energy particle smashups at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE's ...
General Physics
Nov 6, 2024
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Lab experiments around the globe that are gearing up to recreate the mysterious phase of matter found in the early universe could also produce the world's strongest electromagnetic fields, according to a theoretical analysis ...
General Physics
Sep 27, 2024
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Scientists studying the tracks of particles streaming from six billion collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—an "atom smasher" that recreates the conditions of the early universe—have discovered ...
General Physics
Aug 21, 2024
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In high-energy physics, researchers have unveiled how high-energy partons lose energy in nucleus-nucleus collisions, an essential process in studying quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This finding could enhance our knowledge of the ...
General Physics
Jul 23, 2024
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Researchers from the HEFTY Topical Collaboration investigated the recombination of charm and bottom quarks into Bc mesons in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). They have developed a transport model that simulates the kinetics ...
General Physics
Jul 11, 2024
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Colliding heavy atomic nuclei together creates a fluidlike soup of visible matter's fundamental building blocks, quarks and gluons. This soup has very low viscosity—a measure of its "stickiness," or resistance to flow.
General Physics
Jun 25, 2024
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Two detector upgrades of ALICE, the dedicated heavy-ion physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), have recently been approved for installation during the next long shutdown of the LHC, which will take place from ...
General Physics
Apr 30, 2024
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A new analysis by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, provides the first direct evidence of the ...
General Physics
Feb 23, 2024
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Neutron stars in the universe, ultracold atomic gases in the laboratory, and the quark–gluon plasma created in collisions of atomic nuclei at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC): they may seem totally unrelated but, surprisingly ...
General Physics
Feb 16, 2024
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Quark gluon plasma (QGP) is an exciting state of matter that scientists create in a laboratory by colliding two heavy nuclei. These collisions produce a QGP fireball. The fireball expands and cools following the laws of hydrodynamics, ...
General Physics
Dec 20, 2023
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