A little Big Bang: Bowling-pin-shaped nuclei shed new light on the universe's first moments

In the early moments of the universe, before life as we know it existed, physicists at the CERN research facility in Switzerland are attempting to recreate the extreme conditions that prevailed. At CERN, researchers can make atomic nuclei collide at near-light speed, generating minuscule droplets of primordial matter called quark-gluon plasma, which is believed to have been the first form of matter in the universe.

Until recently, scientists thought creating this plasma required collisions between heavy nuclei like lead. However, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have now succeeded in producing the matter by colliding much smaller oxygen-16 and neon-20 nuclei. This breakthrough, part of the international ALICE experiment, has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The collisions revealed that the movement patterns of the particles created by the plasma revealed the geometric shape of the nuclei involved. While collisions between oxygen nuclei produced a rounded pattern, those involving neon resulted in a bowling-pin-shaped pattern. By studying these particle movements, researchers can gain insights into the geometric shape of atomic nuclei, which in turn provides important information about the strong force, one of nature's four fundamental forces.

Further experiments with even lighter nuclei, such as helium-4, could help determine the minimum conditions for plasma formation, potentially leading to a paradigm shift in understanding atomic nuclei and the conditions of the early universe.