Some of the most complex experiments in fundamental physics command a huge amount of energy and large laboratories . And even the most advanced laboratories , like CERN , can not test every single idea physicist think of to excuse the universe .

But beggars ca n’t be selector , and two researchers from the University of Helsinki hope that an response to quantum natural philosophy can come from the sky   – in the form of   neutron star collisions , to be precise .

Neutron stars are the incredibly dense remains of supernova , and they take masses of up to a couple of times the Sun in a diameter of 30 kilometers ( 19 miles ) . They are made of degenerate matter ( where molecule are packed very   tightly   together ) , but there are doubts about what ’s exactly going on at their cores .

The researchers , Aleksi Kurkela and Aleksi Vuorinen , have looked at a duad of   different scenario : Neutron stars could be made of average matter in uttermost conditions , or those conditions could create some land of matter we have never seen before , like deconfined ( freely moving ) quark matter .

In a paper , published inPhysics Review Letters , the scientists have calculated how the different core scenario would affect the gravitational wave emitted when two neutron stars merge or when one collides with a black cakehole . shortly , instrument like LIGO could see those events .

“ in the end , they may answer the question , whether neutron stars are composed solely of ordinary atomic nuclei , or if they hold more alien matter in the variant of dull deconfined quark matter , ” read Vuorinen in astatement .

Quarks are the fundamental components of proton and neutrons , the particles at the center of atoms . quark are always recoil   – either in a triplet ( like in proton ) or in a couple ( like in particles called mesons ) , and we also have obtained tetra ( four ) and pentaquark ( five ) particles in the lab . What we have n’t found are   single quarks , but this deconfined quark issue could be a state in which quarks are in reality detached to move in a sorting of blood plasma .

The research provides the tool to model this quark matter to temperature gamey than rank zero ( often used as a starting point ) , which is necessary to mold the sum of neutron stars as the mergers could reach temperatures of billions of degrees .

The lump is now in LIGO ’s court to hopefully find one of these object when they re - part observation   later this year .