Quark epoch

The early-universe period, roughly 10⁻¹² to 10⁻⁶ seconds after the Big Bang, when quarks and gluons filled a hot plasma before combining into hadrons.

Quark–gluon plasma: A state of matter in which quarks and gluons are not confined inside individual hadrons. The quark epoch was filled with this deconfined state of matter.
Quark: An elementary particle that carries color charge and combines with other quarks to form hadrons. Quarks were the matter constituents whose free movement defined the epoch.
Big Bang: The expansion of the universe from an early hot, dense state. The quark epoch was a brief stage in the early expansion.
QCD phase transition: The change between deconfined quark–gluon matter and hadronic matter as conditions vary. It describes the key change that ended the quark epoch.
Quantum chromodynamics: The theory of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons. Its interactions governed the plasma and the emergence of hadrons.
Gluon: An elementary particle that mediates the strong interaction between quarks. Gluons carried the strong force throughout the hot plasma.
Planck epoch: The earliest proposed period of cosmic history, when quantum-gravity effects are expected to dominate. It precedes the eras in which the quark plasma is described by established particle physics.
Lattice QCD: A computational formulation of quantum chromodynamics on a discrete spacetime grid. It provides nonperturbative calculations of the high-temperature transition.
Quark confinement: The phenomenon that prevents quarks from existing as isolated particles under ordinary conditions. Cooling made confinement bind quarks into hadrons near the epoch’s end.
Strong interaction: The fundamental interaction that binds quarks and governs the structure of atomic nuclei. It controlled quark and gluon behavior as the universe cooled.

Linked from 4 pages