Though physicists want to study the quark-gluon plasma, obtaining it is another matter entirely. This means that the only way to gain insight into the formation process is to study the plasma as it cools to form composite particles.
#Quark particle free#
The only place that quarks and gluons exist as free particles, however, is inside of quark-gluon plasma. Scientists can only attain this knowledge by studying in detail the transition from free quarks and gluons to confined ones inside of larger particles such as protons and neutrons. Without knowing the details of this process, physicists will never have a complete understanding of how matter that makes up our Universe was constructed in the moments after the Big Bang. Currently, physicists don’t understand how larger particles such as protons form from quarks and gluons.
Quark soup, known as quark-gluon plasma, is exactly as its name suggests: a liquid-like material formed out of quarks and gluons, the most basic known building blocks of matter. In the blink of an eye, however, the quark soup cooled, giving rise to the first signs of ordinary matter. Instead, a soup made out of their insides, known as quarks and gluons, permeated throughout space. At this point temperatures were still too high for everyday matter such as protons and neutrons to form. In one millionth of a millionth of a second, the primordial fabric of existence transitioned through three distinct phases as the four fundamental forces, electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak and strong forces, took shape. Long before our world took shape, The Big Bang sent a shockwave of energy irradiating through a violently expanding Universe.
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