The physics lab at CERN has announced the observation of three new “exotic particles” that could provide insight into the force that binds subatomic particles together.
The discovery of a new type of pentaquark and two tetraquarks offers new insights into the “strong force” that holds atomic nuclei together. Moreover, these are the first discovered tetraquarks.
Quarks are elementary particles and fundamental constituents of matter. They combine into composite particles – hadrons. The most stable of hadrons are protons and neutrons, which form the nuclei of atoms. They are made up of three quarks.
Newly discovered particles include four and five quarks. A feature of the new pentaquark is the fact that it decays into particles that no other pentaquark will decay into. It contains a strange quark. The new tetraquarks have the same mass. Moreover, one of them has a double electric charge, and the second is a neutral analogue of the first.
The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature in the universe (along with the “weak force”, the electromagnetic force and gravity). Scientists hope that the data obtained will allow them to better understand the nature of exotic particles and develop new theories that explain their existence.
It is also noted that after a 3-year modernization and maintenance, a full-fledged third launch of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was carried out. At the same time, the collision energy is increased to 13.6 TeV, which should lead to new discoveries in elementary particle physics.
Source: bloomberg
