Quark–gluon plasma is a state of matter in which the elementary particles that make up the hadrons of baryonic matter are freed of their strong attraction for one another under extremely high energy densities. These particles are the quarks and gluons that compose baryonic matter. In normal matter quarks are confined; in the QGP quarks are deconfined. In classical quantum chromodynamics (QCD), quarks are the fermionic components of hadrons (mesons and baryons) while the gluons are considered the bosonic components of such particles. The gluons are the force carriers, or bosons, of the QCD color force, while the quarks by themselves are their fermionic matter counterparts.
Quark–gluon plasma is studied to recreate and understand the high energy density conditions prevailing in the Universe when matter formed from elementary degrees of freedom (quarks, gluons) at about 20 μs after the Big Bang. Experimental groups are probing over a large distance the (de)confining quantum vacuum structure, the present day relativistic æther, which determines prevailing form of matter and laws of nature. The experiments give insight to the origin of matter and mass: the matter and antimatter is created when the quark–gluon plasma hadronizes and the mass of matter originates in the confining vacuum structure.