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Hottest, Densest Matter Ever Observed

Posted by michael on from the bang-up-job dept.

meitsjustme writes "Experiments at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have created the hottest, densest matter ever observed, recreating conditions a fraction of a second after the birth of the universe, scientists announced today."

2 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How Much, How Hot? by bholzm1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    PHOBOS paper
    STAR paper
    PHENIX paper

  2. Re:How Much, How Hot? by Peter+T+Ermit · · Score: 4, Informative
    Been a long time since I looked at the specs, but:

    * I think it's 200 GeV/nucleon.
    * I believe that the volume is the same order of magnitude of the nucleus itself -- probably a few times larger than a nucleus.
    * I don't know. A very short time, no doubt.
    * It decayed by condensing into ordinary hadrons, just as steam condenses into liquid water. Lots of energy was shed by the creation of extra matter.
    * Between condensation and mass-energy conversion, you get ordinary matter -- baryons, mesons, leptons, and the force carriers. (And, presumbably, other beyond-SM particles that we don't know about yet.)