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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Particle collisions let scientists test parts of early-universe physics under controlled laboratory conditions. Heavy-ion collisions briefly create tiny droplets of quark–gluon plasma, a form of matter thought to have filled the universe during its first few microseconds. By measuring the particles that emerge, physicists test how well quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes that extreme matter. Other collisions produce Higgs bosons, whose properties test the Standard Model in a separate but complementary line of research. Neither experiment recreates the Big Bang itself.
What conditions do collisions recreate?
In the universe’s first few microseconds, temperatures and densities were so high that quarks and gluons could move freely in a quark–gluon plasma (QGP), rather than being bound inside protons and neutrons. As the universe expanded and cooled, those particles combined into composite particles.
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At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), researchers collide heavy ions such as lead nuclei to make a minuscule, short-lived droplet of similarly hot, dense matter. CERN describes lead-ion collisions as recreating conditions similar to those after the Big Bang. CERN reported in 2017 that temperatures in LHC heavy-ion collisions could exceed 100,000 times the centre of the Sun’s temperature; that comparison applies to the collisions discussed in that report, not necessarily to every event. CERN’s 2017 account describes the experimental goal as studying “the state of matter that dominated in the early beginning of our universe.”
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The plasma lasts far too briefly and is too small to sample directly. Detectors instead record the many particles produced as the collision debris flies outward. Scientists reconstruct tracks, energies and correlations, then compare those observations with theoretical calculations and results from other kinds of collisions. The final particles act as indirect evidence about the earlier, fleeting state.
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Jet quenching: using particle sprays as probes
A high-energy collision can produce a jet: a spray of particles originating from an energetic quark or gluon. If a jet crosses the QGP, it can lose energy to the medium before emerging. This effect, called jet quenching, gives researchers a way to investigate the plasma. They examine how energy loss varies with features such as the jet’s direction, orientation, composition and momentum transfer, and assess whether models of the medium account for the measured patterns.
Jets are one example of a probe, not the only one. Depending on the analysis, researchers can also study heavy quarks, photons or inclusive particle production. Each observable tests a different aspect of how the hot matter behaves or how accurately a model describes the collision.
Which theories are being tested?
Quantum chromodynamics and the quark–gluon plasma
QCD is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons. Heavy-ion data let physicists test how those particles interact at extreme energy density, how the plasma responds to probes, and how strongly interacting matter evolves and cools. A model must account for the patterns in the measured collision products; agreement supports its description of the collision, while mismatches can point to physics that needs refinement.
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Proton collisions can produce Higgs bosons. Because the bosons are identified statistically through their decay products, physicists compare measured production rates, decay patterns and interaction strengths with Standard Model predictions. ATLAS and CMS reported in 2022 that their Higgs measurements were consistent with those predictions within the uncertainties of the analyses. Higgs properties also motivate questions about early-universe evolution and stability, but this is a different test from using heavy-ion collisions to study QGP.
What do the newer oxygen and neon results add?
Heavy-ion studies traditionally focus on large systems such as lead–lead collisions. Results reported in 2026 extend the investigation to lighter collision systems, raising the question of whether smaller systems can also produce QGP-like matter.
CERN reported on 24 July 2026 that ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb each found signs of QGP in oxygen–oxygen collisions. CMS also reported suppression patterns in oxygen and neon systems consistent with parton energy loss. Separately, ALICE reported on 20 March 2026 a common pattern across proton–proton, proton–lead and lead–lead collisions, adding evidence relevant to possible QGP formation and evolution in smaller systems. CERN’s oxygen-collision summary and ALICE’s proton-collision report describe these findings.
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These are signs or indications, not proof that every small-system collision forms a fully developed plasma. The value of comparing systems is that their different sizes and particle patterns let researchers test models under varied conditions. The reported findings do not establish a quantitative ranking of which collision system provides the best test.
What collisions cannot tell us
A collider makes a small region of extreme matter for an instant. It does not reproduce the universe’s expansion history, its initial conditions or every process involved in cosmic evolution. Collider results therefore test and refine physical models relevant to the early universe; they are not a direct observation of the Big Bang and do not, by themselves, explain the universe’s entire origin.
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