Groundbreaking experiments around the world are using heavy ion collisions to recreate the mysterious phase of matter found in the early universe, and the unexpected result could be the world’s strongest electric fields, enabling discoveries in physics.
Unraveling the Early Universe
In the field of nuclear physics, for example, physicists are preparing to collide heavy ions charged atoms in experiments that will help unravel the secrets of quark and gluon plasma. The high-energy-state matter is thought to have existed in the scourge of the universe soon after the Big Bang.
Matter heated to large temperatures and pressures according to the Standard Model of particle physics creates this quark-gluon plasma. There are still many open issues, especially at the highest densities, and experimental checks of this theory will be useful.
“Even though such expectations remain, there are significant theoretical ambiguities, especially at ultrahigh densities,” says Hidetoshi Taya from the RIKEN Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences Program. As such, experiments studying this most extreme form of matter are much needed.
Strong Electric Fields by Surprise
Physicists for the most part are excited by questions about the quark-gluon plasma that is created in these heavy ion collisions, but Taya and his team have discovered an unexpected side benefit: The possibility of generating the most powerful electric fields on Earth.
Taya had studied earlier intense lasers and the strong electromagnetic fields that they can generate, so she understood that similar — but much stronger — fields could develop from these collision experiments. This is an exciting possibility because physicists believe that this ultra-strong field drives what they consider new physical phenomena.
The power of such an intense laser is about 100 trillion times more powerful than a single LED, as Taya explains. Unfortunately, even those lasers pale in comparison to the fields necessary for generating these new light-matter physics effects. Earlier this month, however, Taya — along with some colleagues from CERN and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on the June paper — published a theoretical investigation of the would-be record electric fields in Physical Review C.
Conclusion
Heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies, besides helping to reveal the elusive quark-gluon plasma from the early universe could also create the most intense electric fields known in nature. Indeed, this bonus discovery may provide a springboard for novel experimental directions by giving researchers the ability to probe ultrastrong-field physics. Revealing them could thus lead to a greater understanding of the way the universe is fundamentally put together.
