For a few millionths of a second after the big bang, quarks could move freely, but soon normal matter "froze out" of this quark-matter soup. For the first time scientists have compared quantum theory ...

The strong interaction is one of the fundamental forces of nature, which binds quarks into hadrons such as the proton and the neutron, the building blocks of atoms. According to the quark model, ...

Physicists in the US, India and China have calculated that quarks and gluons can break free from their confinement inside protons and neutrons at a temperature of around two trillion degrees Kelvin – ...