Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), have announced the discovery of three new ‘exotic particles’ that exist for only one hundred thousandth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second and are constructed from quarks, the smallest particles ever discovered.
Subatomic particles never seen before
Scientists at CERN made the discovery of a new type of ” pentaquark” and the first pair of “tetraquarks” on Tuesday, July 5, adding to the illustrious list of new hadrons first observed in the 27-kilometer-long tunnel that it is the LHC.
The three exotic types of particles, which include two combinations of four quarks, known as tetraquarks, plus a unit of five quarks called a pentaquark, are fully consistent with the Standard Model, the decades-old theory that describes the structure of atoms.
Ten years ago, LHC scientists found the Higgs boson particle, also known as the ‘god particle’, which is believed to have played a vital role in the early formation of the universe. Now these new subatomic particles will help physicists better understand how quarks form composite particles.
“Finding new types of tetraquarks and pentaquarks and measuring their properties will help theorists develop a unified model of exotic hadrons, the exact nature of which is largely unknown,” said Chris Parkes, spokesperson for LHCb.
These exotic hadrons were predicted by theorists at the same time as conventional hadrons, about six decades ago, but only recently, in the last 20 years, have they been observed by LHCb and other experiments. Most of the exotic hadrons discovered in the last two decades are tetraquarks or pentaquarks containing a charm quark and a charm antiquark, with the remaining two or three quarks being an up, down, or strange quark or their antiquarks.
A three-year hiatus
The LHC was shut down for three years to upgrade its systems and handle unprecedented energy levels. That closure ended in April, and ever since, scientists and engineers at the CERN research center on the Franco-Swiss border have been preparing for the resumption of science operations. The launch was made in a massive event broadcast by the most important media on the planet. And there are many expectations for this “Run 3”.
“It’s a magical moment ,” CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti said during the webcast. “We just had collisions at an unprecedented energy, 13.6 teraelectronvolts, and this opens a new era of exploration at CERN.”
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 generated global headlines and the awarding of Nobel Prizes to British theorist Peter Higgs, among others. Higgs had first predicted the particle’s existence in the 1960s and theorized that we are surrounded by an ocean of quantum information known as the Higgs Field.
The existence of the Higgs boson is one of the reasons why everything we see, including ourselves, all planets and stars, has mass and exists.
“We are witnessing a period of discovery similar to the 1950s, when a hadron ‘particle zoo’ began to be discovered and eventually led to the quark model of conventional hadrons in the 1960s,” says Niels Tuning, coordinator of the LHCb. .
For its current run, Run 3 , the LHC is expected to operate until another scheduled shutdown between 2025 and 2027. The drastically energized proton beams will cause more collisions, which in theory will enable more new discoveries. As well as studying interactions that are relevant to the very distant past, CERN is also looking to the future with plans for a successor to the LHC, the even larger Future Circular Collider, which will cost €20 billion.
Referencia: LHCb discovers three new exotic particles . The collaboration has observed a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks” CERN
