ALICE sees new sign of primordial plasma in proton collisions

The ALICE Collaboration takes a step further in addressing the question of whether a quark-gluon plasma can be formed in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions. In the first few microseconds after the Big Bang, the universe was in an extremely hot and dense state of matter known as quark-gluon plasma (QGP), which can be reproduced with high-energy collisions between heavy ions such as lead nuclei.