LHC's Latest Particle Collisions Find What May Be A New Form Of Matter
Proton-Lead Collision This visualization from the CMS collaboration depicts a proton colliding with a lead nucleus, sending a shower of particles through the detector. CMS/CERN via MITParticle collisions are turning up unexpected quantum weirdness. Some unusual new physics may be emerging at the Large Hadron Collider, where particles are behaving in a surprising way. Collisions between protons and lead nuclei might be forming a new type of matter that relies on quantum entanglement, according to particle physicists. The Compact Muon Solenoid, one of the two major-magnet particle detectors in the LHC, has been busy smashing together lead ions and protons. When particles collide at incredible energies, they blow apart into their constituent pieces, and physicists look for those building blocks in the shrapnel. This is how LHC scientists found the Higgs boson this summer. (In this new case, the scientists were looking for particle behavior, not necessarily new fundamental bits.) The shrapnel...