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Scientists have discovered an unknown subatomic particle

The researchers from the LHCb facility at CERN's particle accelerator say the particle is made up of five quarks

A combination of a bully and food yields a particle with five quarks. Illustration: CERN
A combination of a bully and food yields a particle with five quarks. Illustration: CERN

The American physicist Murray Gell-Mann, more than 50 years ago, developed a model that explains the structure of the protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus, and stated that each of them consists of three even smaller elementary particles, called "quarks". He also predicted the existence of particles called "mesons", consisting of quarks and antiquarks that cancel each other out. The foods do not survive more than a few fractions of a second. One of the predictions from Gell-Mann's research (which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969), was the existence of a particle with five quarks, a penta-quark, consisting of a fusion of a baryon (proton or neutron) and a meson. Such a particle will eventually have a mass similar to that of a normal baryon, because the quark and antiquark in the food cancel each other out.

Successful breakup

The researchers in the LHCb experiment at CERN's particle accelerator analyzed the types of quarks created by the decay of a particle known as Lamda B, and came to the conclusion that it indeed decays into five different quarks, including one antiquark. In an article submitted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers write that they will now try to understand how the connection between so many quarks in the atomic nucleus was formed, and find out if they are tightly connected like the quarks in a normal baryon, or more loosely.

7 תגובות

  1. There is still a future for physics. But today it is not only focused on elementary physics and condensed matter, but explains phenomena in other sciences: biomedicine, computer science.

    The discoveries made by these physicists are still unfortunately (subjectively) considered inferior because they do not deal with mainstream physics and they are not qualified scientists in the profession they have moved to. This too will change, when there will be an accumulation of breakthrough discoveries that originate in physics and in completely different sciences.

  2. my father
    Thanks to these "wasteful" judges, you have a computer to write your comment. Thanks to them, you have medical equipment, communication, transportation and other tools that make modern life possible.

  3. What a beauty for the physics students and doctoral students because the truth is that there are endless possible particles from the combination of quarks, positrons and electrons and the rest in different forms and in different ways.
    You can write doctoral theses and receive Nobel prizes, and spend endless research money on endless random particles whose lifespan is even difficult to measure

  4. I understood that the accelerator underwent a serious upgrade and doubled its power, the question is, is there no danger to our planet? Couldn't we create a big bang that will destroy us all? There are rumors on the web that Stephen Hawking warned that this accelerator would bring not only the end of humanity, but the end of the entire universe.

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