page_title: Quark–gluon plasma
section_title: Flow
hierarchical_section_title: Quark–gluon plasma / Expected properties / Flow
caption_attribution_description: English: Schematic representation of the interaction region formed in the first moments after the collision of heavy ions with high energies in the accelerator
context_page_description: Quark–gluon plasma or QGP is an interacting localized assembly of quarks and gluons at thermal and chemical equilibrium. The word plasma signals that free color charges are allowed. In a 1987 summary, Léon van Hove pointed out the equivalence of the three terms: quark gluon plasma, quark matter and a new state of matter. Since the temperature is above the Hagedorn temperature—and thus above the scale of light u, d-quark mass—the pressure exhibits the relativistic Stefan-Boltzmann format governed by fourth power of temperature and many practically mass free quark and gluon constituents. We can say that QGP emerges to be the new phase of strongly interacting matter which manifests its physical properties in terms of nearly free dynamics of practically massless gluons and quarks. Both quarks and gluons, must be present in conditions near chemical equilibrium with their colour charge open for a new state of matter to be referred to as QGP.
  Quark–gluon plasma filled the entire Universe before matter was created. Theories predicting the existence of quark–gluon plasma were developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
context_section_description: The discovery of the perfect liquid was a turning point in physics. Experiments at RHIC have revealed a wealth of information about this remarkable substance, which we now know to be a QGP. Nuclear matter at "room temperature" is known to behave like a superfluid. When heated the nuclear fluid evaporates and turns into a dilute gas of nucleons and, upon further heating, a gas of baryons and mesons (hadrons). At the critical temperature, TH, the hadrons melt and the gas turns back into a liquid.  RHIC experiments have shown that this is the most perfect liquid ever observed in any laboratory experiment at any scale. The new phase of matter, consisting of dissolved hadrons, exhibits less resistance to flow than any other known substance. The experiments at RHIC have, already in 2005, shown that the Universe at its beginning was uniformly filled with this type of material—a super-liquid—which once the Universe cooled below TH evaporated into a gas of hadrons. Detailed measurements show that this liquid is a quark–gluon plasma where quarks, antiquarks and gluons flow independently.
  In short, a quark–gluon plasma flows like a splat of liquid, and because it's not "transparent" with respect to quarks, it can attenuate jets emitted by collisions. Furthermore, once formed, a ball of quark–gluon plasma, like any hot object, transfers heat internally by radiation. However, unlike in everyday objects, there is enough energy available so that gluons (particles mediating the strong force) collide and produce an excess of the heavy (i.e. high-energy) strange quarks. Whereas, if the QGP didn't exist and there was a pure collision, the same energy would be converted into a non-equilibrium mixture containing even heavier quarks such as charm quarks or bottom quarks.
  The equation of state is an important input into the flow equations. The speed of sound (speed of QGP-density oscillations) is currently under investigation in lattice computations. The mean free path of quarks and gluons has been computed using perturbation theory as well as string theory. Lattice computations have been slower here, although the first computations of transport coefficients have been concluded. These indicate that the mean free time of quarks and gluons in the QGP may be comparable to the average interparticle spacing: hence the QGP is a liquid as far as its flow properties go. This is very much an active field of research, and these conclusions may evolve rapidly. The incorporation of dissipative phenomena into hydrodynamics is another active research area.
caption: Schematic representation of the interaction region formed in the first moments after the collision of heavy ions with high energies in the accelerator.[34]
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