speed of light saturation (IMAGE)

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory

speed of light saturation

Caption

As nuclei are accelerated close to the speed of light, they become flattened like pancakes. This flattening causes the large number of gluons within the nuclei—generated by individual gluons splitting—to overlap and recombine. If gluon recombination balances out gluon splitting, the nuclei reach a steady state called gluon saturation.

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Brookhaven National Laboratory

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