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HEAVY-ION PHYSICS

Nearly perfect quark–gluon fluid

A statistical analysis of data from ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions has uncovered the specific viscosities of the quark–gluon plasma — suggesting that the hottest matter in the current Universe behaves like a near-perfect fluid.

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Fig. 1: Hydrodynamic simulation of a single non-central lead–lead collision event at the LHC.

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Correspondence to Kari J. Eskola.

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Eskola, K.J. Nearly perfect quark–gluon fluid. Nat. Phys. 15, 1111–1112 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0643-0

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