Multi-Institutional Effort to Study “Extreme Matter”

2017:

The University of Rochester is leading a seven-institution collaboration that promises to significantly broaden human understanding of “extreme matter”—matter that exists under pressures far higher than either on or inside Earth. The collaboration, with local principal investigators Profs. Pierre Gourdain, Gilbert “Rip” Collins, and Dustin Trail, includes Cornell, Michigan, Idaho State, Iowa, Princeton, and Stanford. The research team will develop an instrument called a high-amperage driver for extreme states, or HADES, which will allow scientists to produce and study extreme matter.

The project is fully supported by the National Science Foundation, which awarded the University a $1.1M grant in August. While extreme matter does not exist naturally on or inside Earth, it is quite common in the universe, especially in the deep interiors of planets and stars. Prof. Gourdain notes that HADES will lead to new knowledge about star formation and planetary collisions, the potential for life on other planets, and the properties of materials that make up deep-space objects.

Shown here is a star cluster image captured with the Hubble Telescope