Key Takeaways:
- A study at the ALICE experiment within the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) investigated the material resulting from the collision of two lead nuclei streams.
- The collision generated a quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter composed of ionized gas.
- This experiment achieved a measured temperature of 2 trillion kelvins, the highest temperature artificially created to date.
- This high temperature is linked to the concept of a theoretical upper limit to temperature, related to the energy density of the Big Bang.
Scientists studied data of the material produced after two streams of lead nuclei collided at the center of A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at the Large Hadron Collider.
CERN/Maximilien Brice
Q: Does temperature have an upper limit like the lower limit of absolute zero? What’s the highest measured value?
Jane Haldiman
Chicago, Illinois
A: The universe’s “absolute high” temperature correlates to the energy and heat that existed during the Big Bang. The physics rule that energy must be conserved doesn’t allow any more energy than that which existed at the universe’s beginning. The highest temperature that scientists have created — and thus measured — is 2 trillion kelvins. That was in the “quark-gluon plasma” created in an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. Two streams of lead nuclei traveled toward each other at nearly light-speed. When they collided, they produced a hot plasma — the fourth state of matter made of ionized gas.
Liz Kruesi
Associate Editor
