CMS observes melting of Upsilon particles in heavy-ion collisions
Thursday, December 20, 2012 - 07:30
in Physics & Chemistry
In 2011, CMS presented early evidence that Upsilon (Υ) particles produced in lead-lead collisions "melt" as a consequence of interacting with the hot nuclear matter created in these heavy-ion interactions. CMS has since updated and extended this result using additional data collected in the 2011 heavy-ion run, and the observation now has a significance of greater than 5σ (or 5 standard deviations), the gold standard for claiming a discovery in high-energy physics.