Scientists at the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) in Long Island are preforming similar experiments to the LHC, trying the probe the one of most fundamental, unconfined form of matter, the quark gluon plasma. This type of plasma one can think of as the ‘melted’ form of nuclear matter, because it is essentially a plasma so hot and dense that all of the protons and neutrons (collectively known as Hadrons because they are each made up of 3 quarks) within the gas have melted into the constitute particles known as quarks, as well as the force carrying particles of the strong nuclear force, gluons, that originally bound these quarks together in their proton and neutron forms. It takes very high energies to recreate these conditions in the collider, but ironically enough, when scientists tried to find the ‘melting’ point of nuclear matter after underestimating the energy needed the first time, their second attempt they overestimated and created the QGP without being able observe the physics of the transition. Scientists at RHIC are essentially trying recreate the phase diagram of nuclear matter, just like water has a phase diagram, telling us whether it is a liquid, ice, or vapor at a given temperature and density. They have recently come close to finding what they think might be a critical point of the phase diagram. Signatures of latent heat, and erratic behavior the nuclear fluid suggest so. latent heat can be thought as heat being taken in by the matter and used to change it phase rather than heat it more. It is the same effect that makes water stay at its boiling point temperature until all the water is vapor; Heat must be put in to make the complete transition, before the temperature of the fluid is to be raise more.

Advanced particle research such as this is also crucial for astrophysics and astronomy advancement, because as astronomers probed farther distances, and farther back in time, they have discovered that the universe is expanding. But not only that, it has been expanding from a singularity, a point. When astronomers look back to the beginnings of the universe, they are actually seeing the light from the early universe, and the image shows that the universe was just a hot dense ball of energetic matter. Before 380,000 years after the big bang, it was too hot and dense for light to even exist unconfined for us to see now, but we are still able to probe back indirectly. When the universe was small, and all the energy and matter of it was packed in this tiny space, the conditions were so extremely hot and dense, that scientists know now the QGP must have been the entire form of the universe. Understanding how this phase of matter behaves is crucial for understanding how the early universe created the initial conditions that lead to the universe as we see it now. For the most part, we have a very clear story of how everything in the universe formed from a few microseconds after the big bang, but we don’t know what happened before those couple of microseconds to create the conditions of what we see microseconds after the big bang.

Sources/Further Reading:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140404135856.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark%E2%80%93gluon_plasma