Oxygen collisions show evidence of early-universe matter at lower energies
RHIC experiment sees jet quenching in 200 GeV oxygen smash-ups, strong evidence of quark-gluon plasma
Scientists have produced strong evidence that quark-gluon plasma, the exotic state of matter that filled the universe in its first moments, can form in smaller and lower-energy collisions than previously shown, by smashing oxygen nuclei together at nearly the speed of light at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).