RHIC Collider Creates Quark-Gluon Plasma at 4,000,000,000,000 Degrees Celsius

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the recent achievements of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in creating quark-gluon plasma at extremely high temperatures, specifically 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit. Participants explore the implications of this phenomenon, including its relation to the early universe and potential applications, while also questioning the nature of the plasma and its expansion behavior.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express curiosity about the nature of the quark-gluon plasma and its expansion, questioning how it stops expanding and whether it exists in a 'bubble' or merges with its environment.
  • Others propose that the plasma continues to expand until it transforms into hadrons, suggesting that this process could resemble the expansion of the universe.
  • A participant speculates that the RHIC experiment could provide insights into dark energy and dark matter, positing that the big bang occurred within an existing space-time rather than creating everything from nothing.
  • There are discussions about the potential for harnessing the energy from the quark-gluon plasma, with some participants envisioning applications like energy conversion to usable forms.
  • Concerns are raised about the speculative nature of some claims, emphasizing that the primary goal of RHIC is to understand matter behavior at extreme temperatures rather than alternative energy research.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the implications of the quark-gluon plasma and its behavior, with no consensus reached on the nature of its expansion or its potential applications. The discussion remains unresolved with multiple competing perspectives.

Contextual Notes

Some claims rely on assumptions about the behavior of the quark-gluon plasma and its interaction with the surrounding environment, which are not fully clarified. The discussion also touches on speculative theories that may not be widely accepted.

Gaius Baltar
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What are your thoughts?

Apologies if this is in the wrong place...

Until the LHC finally gets up to full speed, Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) remains the world's most powerful heavy ion smasher. And on Monday, they showed off some of that power by announcing that a recent collision resulted in the hottest matter ever recorded. Coming in at a scorching 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit, the plasma not only recreated the environment of the Big Bang, but might have also resulted in the temporary formation of a bubble within which some normal laws of physics did not apply.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/rhic-collider-creates-72-trillion-degrees-fahrenheit-quark-gluon-plasma"
 
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Physics news on Phys.org
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Dig deeper to find out more.
Follow the links.

http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/news2/news.asp?a=1073&t=pr

'Bubbles' of Broken Symmetry in Quark Soup at RHIC
Data suggest symmetry may ‘melt’ along with protons and neutrons
Monday, February 15, 2010

New Findings on Hot Quark Soup Produced at RHIC
'Perfect' Liquid Hot Enough to be Quark Soup
RHIC Scientists Serve Up 'Perfect' Liquid

On physics forums you could look for my blog or for “perfect symmetry”
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2950827#post2950827
jal
 
How did the quark-soup stop expanding?
 
rustynail said:
How did the quark-soup stop expanding?

It doesn't. It keeps expanding until it reaches the detectors (of course by that time it isn't a quark-gluon plasma anymore and has long since turned into hadrons).

On a lighter note, rumor has it that heavy ion collisions at the LHC could start as soon as this coming week, so the timing of this thread is surprisingly appropriate.
 
the_house said:
It doesn't. It keeps expanding until it reaches the detectors (of course by that time it isn't a quark-gluon plasma anymore and has long since turned into hadrons).

So if it wasn't in a closed area, the QGP would turn into hadrons, and then into clusters of matter, follow its own patterns and laws and expand like the universe is expanding?

Also, did the event created by the collision expand inside a 'bubble' or did it 'merge' with its environment?

I think this could open doors for a new take on meta-universe and pre-big-bang environment theories.
 
rustynail said:
So if it wasn't in a closed area, the QGP would turn into hadrons, and then into clusters of matter, follow its own patterns and laws and expand like the universe is expanding? [...] I think this could open doors for a new take on meta-universe and pre-big-bang environment theories.

I don't quite follow what you're saying, so I can't comment.


rustynail said:
Also, did the event created by the collision expand inside a 'bubble' or did it 'merge' with its environment?

The environment is a vacuum, so I guess you can think of it as being some sort of bubble, but there's no significant surface tension keeping it together. It basically just explodes into the surrounding space.
 
This "bubble" of plasma, perfect liquid has yet to be understood.

What is being studied are the "jets". Or if you prefer the particles leaving the bubble.

The dream is to be able to find how to contain that bubble of perfect liquid and to have a controlled continuous release of those particles so that the energy can be converted to a useable form. (Steam, electricity)

I think that the ideal sized "machine" would be able to replace the train engine.

Further speculations will require another/different thread.
jal
 
the_house said:
I don't quite follow what you're saying, so I can't comment

I started a thread a while ago that explained my thoughts about the big-bang not creating everything, but rather exploding inside an existing space-time, but it was closed and removed.

I think that if the RHIC experiment created an environment similar to our big-bang, it could help explain the presence of what some are now calling "dark energy" and "dark matter". As if the universe created by the big-bang were itself acting quite differently from the environment (pre-BB) in which it occurred.
 
jal said:
This "bubble" of plasma, perfect liquid has yet to be understood.

What is being studied are the "jets". Or if you prefer the particles leaving the bubble.

The dream is to be able to find how to contain that bubble of perfect liquid and to have a controlled continuous release of those particles so that the energy can be converted to a useable form. (Steam, electricity)

I think that the ideal sized "machine" would be able to replace the train engine.

Further speculations will require another/different thread.
jal


Perhaps a bit too much speculation already. :)

Recall that to create a quark-gluon plasma you have to put the energy into the system. There's no extra energy to extract.

The goal of these collisions isn't alternative energy research. Just gaining an understanding of how matter behaves at these extreme temperatures will have to be reward enough, at least for the foreseeable future.
 

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