Daily News Analysis ‘Quark–Gluon Plasma (QGP) ’ : 4 June

Why in News: 

• Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have identified the smallest known quark–gluon plasma droplet that still exhibits fluid-like behaviour.

Key Facts

• QGP (Quark–Gluon Plasma) is an extremely hot and dense state of matter in which quarks and gluons exist freely instead of being bound inside protons and neutrons.
• It is believed to have existed for a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang.
• Quarks are fundamental building blocks of matter, while gluons are particles that carry the strong nuclear force binding quarks together.
• QGP is recreated in laboratories by colliding heavy atomic nuclei at extremely high energies.

Recent Discovery

• Researchers used the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) to collide oxygen nuclei and observed evidence of QGP formation.
• Oxygen nuclei were chosen because they lie between very small proton collisions and much larger lead-ion collisions.
• The study helps identify the minimum size at which matter can still behave like a fluid.

Unique Features of QGP

• Despite containing only thousands of quarks and gluons, QGP behaves like a fluid, not a gas.
• It reaches temperatures of trillions of degrees Celsius, making it one of the hottest forms of matter ever created.
• Energetic quarks and gluons lose energy while passing through QGP, a phenomenon known as jet quenching (energy suppression).
• Evidence of such energy loss confirms the presence of a dense medium formed during collisions.