From research conducted at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research

Although it is mostly used to accelerate protons, in late 2010 physicists filled it with lead ions to generate a quark-gluon plasma – an extremely hot state of matter that resembles conditions directly after the Big Bang. The LHC is able to “re-cook” this primeval soup. The lead collisions were monitored by the ALICE detector, for which the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research helped develop two core components. 

ALICE was able to show that primeval soup is hotter and thicker than expected, with temperatures 100,000 times higher than those inside the sun and pressures greater than those inside a neutron star. In addition, the plasma behaves like an ideal liquid in the sense that it exhibits no interior friction. Two new measurements are planned for the end of 2011 and physicists are hoping they will provide clues about the evolution of the universe, since the behaviour of the primeval soup may well have played a decisive role in the universe’s subsequent development.

Frank Grotelüschen