Scientists at CERN say collisions between oxygen and neon nuclei at the Large Hadron Collider are showing fresh signs of quark-gluon plasma, an extreme form of matter linked to the Universe’s earliest moments. According to the report, all four major LHC experiments have now found evidence pointing in the same direction.
Quark-gluon plasma is believed to have filled the cosmos during the first microseconds after the Big Bang, before matter cooled and formed the particles seen today. By recreating tiny flashes of those conditions in the laboratory, researchers can test ideas about how the early Universe behaved.
The new results focus on oxygen-neon collisions, which appear to be producing signals consistent with this primordial state. The fact that all four major experiments are seeing related evidence gives added weight to the finding and suggests the effect is being observed across different detectors and analyses.
The work adds another piece to the effort to understand how matter acts under the most intense temperatures and densities. As scientists examine the oxygen-neon data in more detail, the results could sharpen the picture of how the Universe evolved from its earliest, hottest phase.
