Large Hadron Collider Finds Evidence of 3 Never-Before-Seen Particles

It's only just been switched on and already it's doing groundbreaking science!

Large Hadron Collider Finds Evidence of 3 Never-Before-Seen Particles

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Physicists say they've found evidence in data from Europe's Large Hadron Collider for three never-before-seen combinations of quarks, just as the world's largest particle-smasher is beginning a new round of high-energy experiments. The three exotic types of particles – which include two four-quark combinations, known as tetraquarks, plus a five-quark unit called a pentaquark – are totally consistent with the Standard Model, the decades-old theory that describes the structure of atoms. In contrast, scientists hope that the LHC's current run will turn up evidence of physics that goes beyond the Standard Model to explain the nature of mysterious phenomena such as dark matter. Such evidence could point to new arrays of subatomic particles, or even extra dimensions in our Universe. The LHC had been shut down for three years to upgrade its systems to handle unprecedented energy levels. That shutdown ended in April, and since then, scientists and engineers at the CERN research center on the French-Swiss border have been getting ready for today's resumption of scientific operations. ... The LHCb team analyzed the decays of negatively charged B mesons and saw evidence for the existence of a pentaquark consisting of a charm quark and a charm antiquark, plus an up, down and strange quark. It's the first pentaquark known to include a strange quark. The two newly identified tetraquarks include a "doubly electrically charged" combination of four quarks: a charm quark, a strange antiquark, an up quark, and a down antiquark. That tetraquark was spotted in combination with its neutral counterpart, which has a charm quark, a strange antiquark, an up antiquark, and a down quark. CERN says this is the first time a pair of tetraquarks has been observed together. Some theoretical models visualize exotic hadrons as single units of tightly bound quarks. Others see them as pairs of standard hadrons that are loosely bound together, similar to the way that atoms are bound together to form molecules. "Only time and more studies of exotic hadrons will tell if these particles are one, the other or both," CERN says.

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