The large hadron collider (LHC) of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) has carried out in its new phase of operation, the first collisions of lead ions with such power that they have almost doubled the amount of energy of any other previous experiment.
Considering that collisions with these ions at temperatures of trillions of degrees allow scientists to study a state of matter just after the Big Bang, this “stable beam” success marks the beginning of four major and important experiments to be carried out. they will develop for a month as long as it is running on charged lead ions or lead atoms without electrons.
“Colliding ions is a tradition for one month each year as part of our diverse research program at the LHC. This year, however, is special because we reached a new energy and we will explore matter in an even earlier period of our universe ”, Rolf Heuer, CEO of CERN, explains to SINC.
And it is that in this primordial stage of our universe, matter was very hot and very dense, full of elementary particles that we know as quarks and gluons, constituent elements of matter from which, of course, human beings also emerged.
“There are many interesting questions to be addressed by this cycle of ion operation, for which our experiment was designed and improved during the maintenance period. For example, we are waiting to see how the increase in energy affects the production of charmonium (a particle composed of a charm quark and its antiparticle) and jet quenching ”(a phenomenon whereby the produced particles lose energy as they pass through quark and gluon plasma), clarifies the spokesperson for the ALICE collaboration, Paolo Giubellino.
