Eric Appelt

By Stacy Kish on August 4, 2010

Eric Appelt has been curious since childhood. “I used to read in the encyclopedias about how all things are made of atoms, and that the atoms in turn consisted of electrons, protons, and neutrons,” begins Appelt. “Then I read that protons and neutrons consisted of quarks and gluons.”

Appelt admits that the research is still at the early stages. “We are trying to determine the most basic properties of the hot and dense medium at this higher energy scale,” he said. “The information gained from this first lead collision run in 2010 will allow for more precision measurements to be made in the future.”

Cosmologists believe that for a few microseconds the universe was hot and dense, like hot nuclear matter.  Scientists try to simulate these conditions using devices like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland.

With the LHC, scientists collide large lead nuclei together to understand what happens to nuclear matter at exceedingly high temperatures. Appelt explains, “When two lead nuclei collide head on at this energy, for a brief instant the shattered remnants of the nuclei attain a temperature of trillions of degrees.” At this temperature, the protons and neutrons that make up nuclei are thought to melt into their constituent quarks and gluons. “This is analogous to smashing two rocks together so hard that for an instant they melt into lava,” said Appelt.

Appelt admits that the research is still at the early stages. “We are trying to determine the most basic properties of the hot and dense medium,” he said. “The information gained from this first lead collision run in 2010 will allow for more precision measurements to be made in the future.”

Appelt concludes, “The fellowship allows me to concentrate all of my effort on the physics of heavy ion collisions. It also gives me the freedom to spend more time on-site at the LHC where I can better collaborate with the other researchers and therefore become more productive.” Appelt’s graduate fellowship is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Stacy Kish is a Science Writer with the Office of Science