heavy ion

To recreate conditions similar to those of the very early universe, powerful accelerators make head-on collisions between massive ions, such as gold or lead nuclei. Learn more about CERN's heavy ion collisions here.
41 results

ALICE bags about twelve billion heavy-ion collisions

The whopping number of collisions recorded by ALICE during the recent five-week heavy-ion run of the LHC is 40 times greater than the total recorded by the experiment in its previous periods of heavy-ion data taking, from 2010 to 2018

News
Experiments
01 December, 2023
Experiments
News
01 December, 2023

Charm is better than beauty at going with the flow

New ALICE measurements shed light on the dynamics of charm and beauty particles in quark–gluon plasma

News
Physics
15 December, 2023

Accelerator Report: Ending the 2023 run with a quench

Another few days and the last 2023 LHC beams will be dumped, hopefully by the machine protection system following a controlled magnet quench

News
Accelerators
26 October, 2023
Accelerators
News
26 October, 2023

LIVE: from the CERN Control Centre with the four largest LHC experiments

Join scientists from the four largest LHC experiments and other experts, live at the CERN Control Centre on 2 November 2023, 3 p.m. CET, for a recap of the first heavy-ion run of the LHC Run 3

News
Experiments
25 October, 2023
Experiments
News
25 October, 2023

Accelerator Report: Optimisation for greater success (and new challenges)

Since the last Accelerator Report, lead-ion beams have been successfully provided to the SPS North Area, in particular to the NA61 experiment, which is their principal user

News
Accelerators
12 October, 2023
Accelerators
News
12 October, 2023

Accelerator Report: Getting lead ions ready for physics

In about a week, lead ions will be sent from the SPS into the LHC to collide in the accelerator’s four big experiments

News
Accelerators
13 September, 2023
Accelerators
News
13 September, 2023

ALICE sees “the ridge” in simplest collisions yet

The observation brings physicists a step closer to finding the origin of collective phenomena in small collision systems

News
Physics
31 March, 2023

First lead-ion collisions in the LHC at record energy

On Friday, 18 November, a test using collisions of lead ions was carried out in the LHC and provided an opportunity for the experiments to validate the new detectors and new data-processing systems ahead of next year’s lead-lead physics run.

News
Experiments
23 November, 2022
Experiments
News
23 November, 2022

ALICE pins down hypermatter properties

The collaboration’s latest study of a “strange”, unstable nucleus known as the hypertriton offers new insight into the particle interactions that may take place at the hearts of neutron stars

News
Physics
20 September, 2022
Physics
News
20 September, 2022

CMS collaboration releases its first open data from heavy-ion collisions

CMS data recorded in 2010 and 2011 from lead–lead collisions at the Large Hadron Collider have been released into the public domain for the first time

News
Knowledge sharing
13 January, 2021
Knowledge sharing
News
13 January, 2021

Recreating Big Bang matter on Earth

Our fifth story in the LHC Physics at Ten series looks at how the LHC has recreated and greatly advanced our knowledge of the state of matter that is believed to have existed shortly after the Big Bang

Feature
Physics
13 November, 2020
Physics
Feature
13 November, 2020