Quark Gluon-Plasma (QGP)

Presented by

Lukasz Blaszczyk

What is Quark-Gluon Plasma?

QGP is a “soup” of Quarks and Gluons.

The Quarks and Gluons are unbound.

They interact freely with each other.

Where does QGP exist?

Existed just after the Big Bang.

The first 10^-9 seconds after the Big Bang.

At temperature above 10^12 Kelvin.

We have not seen it since.

First signs of QGP at CERN Super Proton Synchrotron February 2000.

First signs at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in January 2001.

Press release from RHIC in June 2003.

Significance of QGP

What did the universe look like at the beginning of time?

Tests our theoretical models of the Big Bang and the Standard Model.

Help explain the origins of protons, neutrons, and other elementary particles.

Help our understanding of cosmology.

Explain our matter-dominated universe.

How is it produced?

CERN and lead nuclei collisions

One lead nucleus traveling at nearly the speed of light collides with a motionless lead nucleus.

RHIC and gold nuclei

Two beams of gold nuclei colliding at nearly the speed of light.

Reproducing the Big Bang ... (Sort Of)

Energies of ~100-130 GeV per nucleon.

10 times the energies produced at CERN

30 times the rest energy of the nucleus

Temperature of 1.7 Trillion Kelvin

100,000 times hotter than core of the sun

Area the size of a Gold nucleus

Lasts 10^-23 seconds

Detecting QGP

Matter to Anti-Matter ratio (January 2001)

Over 200 Million collisions.

We see a 1.3:1 ration of Matter to Anti-Matter.

Collective flow of particles (January 2001)

Almond shaped expansion observed.

Unexpected hard- and soft-collisions.

Jet Quenching (January 2003)

Gold-Deuteron collisions.

Gold-Gold jets quenched ~80%

J/Psi Particle (Late 2003)

Charm/Anti-Charm quark pair.

References

Exciting First Results from Deuteron-Gold Collisions at Brookhaven,Brookhaven Laboratory News http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2003/bnlpr061103.htm

CERN claims quark-gluon first, PhysicsWEB, http://physicsweb.org/article/news/4/2/4/1

Signs of the Quark-Gluon Plasma?, Physics Review, http://focus.aps.org/story/v8/st34

Just After Big Bang, Colliding Gold Ions Exploded, UniSci, http://unisci.com/stories/20012/0501012.htm

Has RHIC Set Quarks Free at Last? Physicists Don't Quite Say So, Science 2003 June 20; 300: 1861

Wayward Particles Collide With Physicists' Expectations, Science 2002 October 25; 298: 718-719

New Collider Sees Hints of Quark-Gluon Plasma, Science 2001 January 26; 291: 573

CERN Stakes Claim on New State of Matter, Science 2000 February 11; 287: 949-951

Lukasz Blaszczyk

2003-09-08T21:15:43