Clear sign that quark-gluon plasma production ‘turns off’ at low energy

Physicists report new evidence that production of an exotic state of matter in collisions of gold nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) can be ‘turned off’ by lowering the collision energy. The findings will help physicists map out the conditions of temperature and density under which the exotic matter, known as a quark-gluon plasma (QGP), can exist and identify key features of the phases of nuclear matter.