Near-miss collisions at world’s largest particle accelerator reveal secrets of strong force

Researchers study how gluons behave in extreme conditions using photonuclear interactions.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is used in the study.

Near-miss collisions occur when fast-moving particles just barely skim past each other.

A photonuclear interaction is when a photon, generated by a strong electromagnetic field, strikes a nearby atomic nucleus.

MIT scientist Gian Michele Innocenti is an experimental physicist and an assistant professor at MIT.