Grant advances quark-gluon plasma studies

Grant advances quark-gluon plasma studies: In 2005, RHIC announced the breakthrough discovery of a quark-gluon plasma, a dense, high-energy state of matter believed to have existed in the first milliseconds after the Big Bang. Scientists referred to the very hot material created in the lab -- 150,000 times hotter than the sun's core -- as a "perfect liquid," one with practically no viscosity, or as little as quantum physics will allow. Such properties were quite a surprise, Geurts said, because original expectations were that this phase of matter would behave much more like a gas.