Electron bunches keep ions cool at RHIC

Accelerator physicists have demonstrated a groundbreaking technique using bunches of electrons to keep beams of particles cool at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science ...

STAR detector has a new inner core

For scientists tracking the transformation of protons and neutrons—the components of atomic nuclei that make up everything we see in the universe today—into a soup of fundamental building blocks known quark-gluon plasma, ...

Infographic: Rhic cooks up a quantum tempest in a teacup

When particles collide inside Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), they melt at trillion-degree temperatures and form a friction-free "perfect" liquid. This quark-gluon plasma, composed of the liberated ...

High-energy particle collisions reveal the unexpected

The nucleus of an atom is composed of protons and neutrons, which are themselves made up of elementary particles called quarks and gluons. Observing these elementary particles is difficult and typically involves smashing ...

The heaviest known antimatter

When an international team of scientists working at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) announced the discovery of the most massive antinucleus to date — and the first containing an anti-strange quark — it ...

Shining light on the inner details and breakup of deuterons

Scientists have found a way to "see" inside deuterons, the simplest atomic nuclei, to better understand the "glue" that holds the building blocks of matter together. The new results come from collisions of photons (particles ...

A colorful look at fast-flying particles

The strong nuclear force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, along with the electromagnetic, gravitational and weak nuclear forces. The branch of particle physics that deals with the strong nuclear force is called ...

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