Quark–gluon plasma in their Nature PR. 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 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
Force carrier Force carrier In particle physics, force carriers or messenger particles or intermediate particles are particles that give rise to forces between other particles. These particles are bundles of energy (quanta) of a particular kind of field. There is one kind of field for every type of elementary particle. For instance, there is an electric field whose quanta are electrons, and an electromagnetic field whose quanta are photons. The force carrier particles that mediate the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions are called gauge bosons. In particle physics, quantum field theories such as the Standard Model describe nature in terms of fields.