eli5: what is quark-gluon plasma?

Question

eli5: what is quark-gluon plasma?

In: 1

Answer 1

Quark-gluon plasma is what you get when you heat matter up to a very extreme amount.

First matter becomes a normal plasma when the electrons get loose. Then, at really insane temperatures, protons and neutrons basically “melt” into their constituent parts which are quarks and gluons.

Quark-gluon plasma only exists/existed in a few places. First, shortly after the “Big Bang” and when we smash particles together in something like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).