LHC unmasks primordial diffusion wake in quark-gluon plasma, hinting at the early universe
After more than two decades of searching, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider observed a diffusion wake in the hot quark-gluon plasma created by lead–lead collisions, matching long-predicted behavior and enabling a more precise study of this primordial state. By analyzing back-to-back dijet events, researchers isolated the wake signals—most pronounced in central collisions—and reported the finding in Physical Review Letters, marking a major step toward understanding the properties of the quark-gluon plasma and the conditions of the early universe just after the Big Bang.