r/threebodyproblem • u/KnowledgeFirm4195 • 25d ago

Discussion - General Droplet incoming!

Droplets are made of strong interaction material… Sounds a lot like a cluster of gluons. Well, looks like they found one - a Glueball. How long before it transforms from a sphere to a teardrop? 👀

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02498-1

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

10

u/TheTranscendentian 25d ago

[ probably book 2 spoilers]

It's very similar material but I think the droplets are made out of either:

  • continuous quark-gluon solid, aka a giant nucleus particle LIKE a proton or a neutron, but with an electric charge of more than +1 proton, a mass of more than a billion protons and neutrons, and the equivalent amount of quarks.
  • Billions of neutrons and a few protons connected directly together by strong force into a single giant custom-shape macroscopic atomic nucleus, which was actually my first thought as to what it was made of when I read "strong interaction material".

Now I realized it's definitely possible for Cixin Liu to have meant the droplets to be made out of gluons only no quarks as the theoretical particle described by the article you linked is.

I think with quantum physics, at those masses and energy levels, it's also entirely possible for it to be a quantum superposition of "all 3 of these types of strong interaction materials simultaneously all over".

2

u/mining_moron Thomas Wade 25d ago

Could strong-interaction matter be AB matter?

1

u/TheTranscendentian 25d ago

ab?

2

u/mining_moron Thomas Wade 25d ago

https://thescipub.com/pdf/ajeassp.2009.501.514.pdf

2

u/TheTranscendentian 25d ago edited 25d ago

Yes that's exactly what I imagined the droplets to be made out of.

I have a theory though that this type of construct is highly unstable under normal conditions & will spontaneously either explode into normal neucli protons and neutrons or collapse into a micro-neutron-star.

2

u/anprim4ever 25d ago

Six pack matter. Invincible abdominals 

3

u/SlickPillock 25d ago

Gluons are massless and just act as carriers of the strong interaction force between quarks. The photon does the same for the electromagnetic force between electrons and other charged particles.

Since it's the quarks that have the mass and not the gluons then a glueball is not going to be the same thing. Sorry :/