QCD matter

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Quark matter or QCD matter (quantum chromodynamic matter) refers to any of a number of hypothetical phases of matter built from quarks and gluons, of which the prominent example is quark-gluon plasma. At different temperatures and densities quark matter takes different forms, including a hadron gas, nuclear matter, quark-gluon plasma, and regions of color superconductivity. Quarks are liberated into quark matter at extremely high temperatures and/or densities, and some of them are still only theoretical as they require conditions so extreme that they cannot be produced in any laboratory, especially not at equilibrium conditions. Under these extreme conditions, the familiar structure of matter, where the basic constituents are nuclei (consisting of nucleons which are bound states of quarks) and electrons, is disrupted. In quark matter it is more appropriate to treat the quarks themselves as the basic degrees of freedom. In the Standard Model of particle physics, the strong force is described...

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