The first matter of the universe may have been a perfect fluid

By crushing the lead particles at a speed of 99.9999991% of the speed of light, the scientists recreated the first material to appear later. big Bang..

From this shipwreck was born a primitive type of substance called quark-gluon plasma (QGP). It only lasted a moment, but for the first time scientists plasmaIts liquid-like properties – less resistance to flow than other known materials – and determine its evolution in the first moments of the early universe.

“this [study] Shows the evolution of QGP and finally [could] This suggests how the early universe evolved in the first microseconds after the Big Bang, ”said Yu Jou, co-author and associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

After the Big Bang, the universe was considered a soup of energy, but it grew rapidly during a period called inflation, allowing the universe to cool enough to form matter. .. The first entities thought to appear were quarks, which are elementary particles, and gluons, which have a strong force to attach quarks to each other. As the universe cools further, these particles form subatomic particles called hadrons, some of which are called protons and neutrons.

Scientists prepared this soup-like stew on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest atomic crusher on the Geneva border in Switzerland. Scientists were able to smash heavy nuclei together to create small fireballs that effectively melt particles into primitive shapes within moments. Scientists created the first QGP in 2000. However, the last batch was published online in the journal on May 11, 2021. Physical Letter BIt was the first time that they could study its characteristics. liquid Learn more about nature. Since the duration of the plasma was only 10 to minus 23 seconds, the scientists used a new computer simulation with data collected from a device called ALICE (short for A Large Ion Collider Experiment) to describe the material. How did it change from when it formed to when it condensed into a hadron? They discovered that QGPs are completely liquid, that is, they have little viscosity or resistance to flow, and that they change shape over time in a different way than others. forms of matter.

This information helps scientists understand what the first childhood universe would look like after the Big Bang. Scientists want to reveal more details as accelerators are upgraded and the new US $ 1 billion accelerator comes online. More research could help scientists understand how quarks and gluons are arranged in protons and neutrons, “potentially linked in the early stages.” [called] It’s quantum inflation in the Big Bang model, ”Zhou said.

Originally published Live Science..