Shattered glass.

• Autores: David Appell
• Localización: Scientific American, ISSN 0036-8733, Vol. 290, Nº. 4, 2004, págs. 30-32
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Physicists investigating heavy-particle collisions believe they are on the track of a universal form of matter, one common to very high energy particles ranging from protons to heavy nuclei such as uranium. Some think that this matter, called a color glass condensate, may explain new nuclear properties and the process of particle formation during collisions. The flattened multitude of gluons that result from protons and neutrons overlap and fall into the same quantum state, similar to the way atoms in a low-temperature BoseEinstein condensate overlap and behave collectively as one gigantic atom. Just as regular glass is an amorphous solid for short periods (years) but flows over long intervals (centuries), these high-energy gluons are in a glassy planar state that changes very slowly compared with timescales typical of nuclear systems. Electron-proton scattering in the HERA accelerator in Hamburg, Germany, provided indications of a color glass condensate. To detect a quark-gluon plasma, physicists examine the spray of particles emitted perpendicularly to the beam axis. But to tease out signs of a color glass condensate, detectors look at very small angles (about four degrees) relative to the beam axis. There the effects of a large number of very low momentum gluons dominate.