Contact: Wolfgang Bauer, Physics and Astronomy, (517) 353-8662; or Russ White, University Relations, (517) 355-2281
4/18/2005 The photo shows the tracks that these 5,000 particles leave in the STAR detector in a single collision.
EAST LANSING, Mich. � A group of scientists � including Michigan State University�s Gary Westfall � conducting research at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) � a giant atom �smasher� located at the U.S. Department of Energy�s Brookhaven National Laboratory � say they�ve created a new state of hot, dense matter out of the quarks and gluons that are the basic particles of atomic nuclei, but it is a state quite different and even more remarkable than had been predicted.
In peer-reviewed papers summarizing the first three years of RHIC findings, the scientists say that instead of behaving like a gas of free quarks and gluons, as was expected, the matter created in RHIC�s heavy ion collisions appears to be more like a liquid.
Westfall, MSU University Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy, made this announcement today on behalf of the four experimental collaborations working at the RHIC on Long Island, N.Y., at the April 2005 meeting of the American Physical Society in Tampa, Fla.
Close to 2,000 physicists from dozens of countries work in these four collaborations. Westfall is a member of the STAR collaboration, the biggest of the four collaborations. In this collaboration, he occupies a leadership position as the head of the event-by-event analysis and physics working group.
�What is so incredibly exciting about this discovery is that what we found turned out to be totally different from what we thought we would find,� Westfall said.�We thought we would find a plasma of asymptotically free quarks and gluons, that is to say quarks and gluons that have almost no interactions.�
The scientists created a new state of matter, a nearly perfect fluid in which the quarks and gluons interact strongly.
�This is amazing,� Westfall added. �But it shows that you cannot just rely on making theories alone. In the end, you have to build the machine and do the experiment.What you learn is often more beautiful than the most vivid imagination.�
This new matter was created by colliding two gold nuclei at the highest energies available on Earth. It lives less than one thousandth of a billionth of a billionth of a second � shorter relative to the blink of an eye than that blink of an eye is relative to the age of the entire universe.
�This discovery will make us all go back to the drawing board and re-examine all of our theoretical models,� said Scott Pratt, associate professor of physics and astronomy at MSU.�It may take years before we understand all of what we are seeing.�
�Obviously, this discovery has Nobel Prize implications,� added Wolfgang Bauer, MSU physicist and chairperson of MSU�s Department of Physics and Astronomy. �The RHIC collaborations have done incredibly careful studies to make sure that they can back up their claims, and so I think that this amazing discovery will stand the test of time. I am incredibly proud to have a distinguished colleague of Dr. Westfall�s caliber on our faculty.�
For more information on the Web, see www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=05-38