CERN experiments recreate quark-gluon plasma using light nuclei

Four major experiments at the Large Hadron Collider—ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb—have independently provided evidence that collisions of light nuclei, such as oxygen and neon, can recreate quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This state of matter, which existed for a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, is characterized by temperatures over 100,000 times hotter than the core of the Sun, causing quarks and gluons to behave like a liquid rather than being bound within protons and neutrons.

Previously, physicists believed that creating such extreme conditions required colliding much heavier nuclei, such as lead, which are over 200 times more massive than protons. However, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute and international collaborators have successfully demonstrated that smaller nuclei can also produce this primordial matter. These findings shift the understanding of the minimum requirements for recreating the early universe's conditions in a laboratory setting.