Quark leaves wake in lab-made primordial plasma, hinting at a soupy early universe
Physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (CMS collaboration) detected a subtle dip (less than 1%) in backward particle production as a high-energy quark moved through a tiny droplet of quark-gluon plasma, revealing a wake formed by energy transfer to the primordial fluid. By using Z bosons as clean markers, researchers could isolate this effect and gain a lab-side glimpse into the hot, liquid-like plasma that filled the early universe microseconds after the Big Bang.
