Study proposes mathematical tool to help understand fractal structure of quark-gluon plasma
Cascade of events triggered by colliding lead ions in the LHC’s CMS detector, recorded in November 2018. Credit: CMS/CERN

The quark-gluon plasma is a state of matter existing at very high temperatures and densities. When hadrons are accelerated to relativistic velocities and made to collide with each other, quarks and gluons are not confined in the structures that constitute hadrons. Observation of the phenomenon has led to discoveries about the nature of material reality.

There is evidence that quark-gluon plasma has a structure. The behavior of the particles in the jets is similar to that of the quarks and gluons in theplasma. It decays in a cascade of reactions with a pattern of self- similarity.

There is a mathematical tool that can be used to understand more about the phenomenon. There is a technical aspect to the solution to the Klein-Gordon equation for the dynamics of bosons, particles with zero spin that share the same quantum states. Particles behave as if they were a single particle in a Bose-Einstein condensation. New atomic and optical physics have been discovered. Enhanced techniques could be used to make integrated circuits.

Airton Deppman, a professor at the University of So Paulo's Institute of Physics in Brazil, is the principal investigator for the study.

The study was part of a broader research program that had already resulted in 2020 in the article'Fractals, noNextensive statistics, and QCD' published in Physical Review D.

The standard model of particle physics is very important due to the fact that it describes three of the four fundamental forces in the universe.

The main outcome of a high-energy collision is the distribution of particles. The structure of the fractals is to blame. The Boltzmann statistics lead to Tsallis. He was born in Greece and became a Brazilian in 1984. He is a theoretical physicist. An Austrian physicist and mathematician named Ludwig Boltzmann made important advances in statistical mechanics.

The key parameters of the Yang-Mills were calculated using a simple formula. The number of particle colors and flavors is one of the parameters of quantum chromodynamics. We found that q is compatible with the results of the experiment.

Strong interactions between quarks are the subject of colors in QCD. Three possibilities are represented by red, green and blue The electric charges that quaks have are related to the interaction between the two elements. The six types of quark are described in flavors. The sense of humor of Murray Gell-Mann is reflected in this picturesque name.

Rolf Hagedorn, a German physicist who worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, set out to predict the production of particles before quarks were proposed. He came up with the idea of fireballs to explain the cascade of particles created in high-energy crashes. He predicted the threshold temperature based on the hypothesis. His theory is based on the similarity of fireballs. Hagedorn didn't use the term 'fractal' because the concept didn't exist yet, but after the term was created by Mandelbrot, fireballs were a thing. Benot Mandelbrot was a Polish born French American mathematician.

Hagedorn's theory can be generalized using Tsallis statistics. In 2012 he did so in an article.

"With this generalization, we get a self-consistent theory that predicts the critical temperature for the transition to quark-gluon, and also a formula for the hadron mass spectrum, from lightest to heaviest," he said. There is strong evidence for a conceptualronic continuity in the description of had systems from quark-gluon to hadrons.

He wonders if there could be other structures in electromagnetism. This would explain why so many natural phenomena, such as lightning, are governed by the same force. It's possible that Tsallis statistics are present in a lot of phenomena. Scales have been described as a key ingredient of fractals.

Is the theory of fractals related to the phenomenon of gravity? "Gravitation is outside the scope of our approach, but there's nothing we can do to prevent us from speculating about the underlying pattern in all material reality," he stated.

More information: E. Megías et al, Nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation and the Bose–Einstein condensation, The European Physical Journal Plus (2022). DOI: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02511-2 Journal information: Physical Review D