MIT News: A step closer to Big Bang conditions?

“As soon as the measurement came out — first within the experiment and then presented publicly — there was a lot of debate about the possible explanation,” says Gunther Roland, a physicist in the MIT heavy-ion group who was one of the leaders of the analysis of the data along with MIT postdoctoral associate Wei Li. / In the upcoming months, physicists plan to increase the intensity of LHC proton beams, providing at least 100 times more data that can be used to further study this phenomenon. They also plan to run beams of heavier ions, such as lead. Based on these studies, it will be possible to eliminate many of the proposed explanations and to study if the effects in proton-proton and heavy ion collisions are related.