RHIC data reveal intriguing dip in momentum fluctuations in high-density nuclear matter

Scientists using the STAR detector to study particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have found an intriguing dip in their data in a relatively unexplored region of the nuclear phase diagram—a map of how nuclear matter behaves under various conditions of temperature and density. The dip appears in data tracking collision-by-collision variations in the momenta of particles emerging from collisions between gold nuclei at RHIC, near RHIC's lowest collision energies. These c