The Fluid Nature of Quark-Gluon Plasma

TL;DR

Heavy ion collisions at RHIC have created a hot, dense quark-gluon plasma that behaves more like a nearly perfect fluid with strong hydrodynamic flow than a free gas of quarks and gluons.

Contribution

This paper reviews experimental evidence from RHIC demonstrating the fluid-like properties of the quark-gluon plasma.

Findings

Achieved temperatures and densities consistent with quark-gluon plasma formation

Observed strong hydrodynamic flow indicating fluid behavior

Found very low viscosity suggesting a nearly perfect fluid

Abstract

Collisions of heavy nuclei at very high energies offer the exciting possibility of experimentally exploring the phase transformation from hadronic to partonic degrees of freedom which is predicted to occur at several times normal nuclear density and/or for temperatures in excess of $\sim 170$ MeV. Such a state, often referred to as a quark-gluon plasma, is thought to have been the dominant form of matter in the universe in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang. Data from the first five years of heavy ion collisions of Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) clearly demonstrate that these very high temperatures and densities have been achieved. While there are strong suggestions of the role of quark degrees of freedom in determining the final-state distributions of the produced matter, there is also compelling evidence that the matter does {\em not} behave as a quasi-ideal state of free quarks and gluons. Rather, its behavior is that of a dense fluid with very low kinematic viscosity exhibiting strong hydrodynamic flow and nearly complete absorption of high momentum probes. The current status of the RHIC experimental studies is presented, with a special emphasis on the fluid properties of the created matter, which may in fact be the most perfect fluid ever studied in the laboratory.