Sign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
In particle physics, atoms are the building blocks of matter in the universe, each consisting of a nucleus, protons, neutrons, and electrons.<\/p>\n
Scientists have increasingly peered even further into these building blocks, examining the peculiar world of particles that are even smaller than individual atoms. According to the quark model, multiple subatomic particles called quarks can form hadrons held together by strong nuclear forces. Each of these quarks can come in three pairs of \u201cflavors\u201d \u2014 up and down, charm and strange, and top and bottom \u2014 that determine their mass and charge.<\/p>\n
Now, scientists have used CERN\u2019s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, to uncover what they say is an entirely new type of particle<\/a>, dubbed Xi-cc-plus, that consists of two charm quarks and one down quark. That makes it not unlike a proton, albeit with two heavy charm quarks replacing its two up quarks.<\/p>\n Put simply, the LHC uses copious amounts of energy to fire hadrons together inside an enormous machine. The goal is to produce exotic subatomic particles<\/a> that tend to be extremely unstable and short-lived, including baryons and mesons, both of which are types of hadrons.<\/p>\n So far, scientists have used the LHC to discover 80 new hadrons, including the latest one.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first new particle identified after the upgrades to the LHCb detector that were completed in 2023, and only the second time a baryon with two heavy quarks has been observed, the first having being observed by LHCb almost ten years ago,\u201d said LHCb spokesperson Vincenzo Vagnoni in an announcement of the findings<\/a>.<\/p>\n The LHCb \u2014 or Large Hadron Collider beauty \u2014 experiment is a detector collecting data at the LHC, which specializes in the detection of heavy particles that contain bottom and charm quarks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe result will help theorists test models of quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong force that binds quarks into not only conventional baryons and mesons but also more exotic hadrons such as tetraquarks and pentaquarks,\u201d Vagnoni added.<\/p>\n The new particle is four times as heavy as a regular proton. The forces holding it together grow as the distance increases, not unlike a rubber band, as The Guardian explains<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more we learn about these particles, the more we can learn about the strong force, and that is the same strong force that binds our protons and neutrons together,\u201d University of Manchester physicist Chris Parkes told the newspaper.<\/p>\n The latest discovery was exceedingly challenging to pull off. Despite closely resembling a different particle that was discovered by the LHCb in 2017 \u2014 the new particle features an up quark while the older one has a down quark instead \u2014 its lifetime is up to six times shorter.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is just the first of many expected insights that can be gained with the new LHCb detector,\u201d University of Warwick professor Tim Gershon, who will take over the lead at the LHCb in July, told The Guardian.<\/p>\n