Scientists just discovered 2 never-before-seen particles, and they’re refining our understanding of fundamental physics

Scientists just announced the discovery of two never-before-seen particles hiding inside data collected by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland.

The LHC is a 17-mile-long underground tunnel that hurls protons at each other at incredible speeds. Physicists study the particles that they break apart into.

Physicists predicted the existence of these two new particles a few years ago, but we had no hard evidence that they existed until now.

The two new particles reinforce the standard model of physics, which is a working theory that describes all the known particles in the universe. The discovery of the particles is also helping physicists learn more about one of the fundamental forces in the universe, strong force, which acts like glue and hold particles together. The research was published on Feb. 10 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The two new particles are named Xib’- and Xib*- (pronounced “zi-b-prime” and “zi-b-star,” Scientific American points out). Both Xib-and Xib*- are a type of particle called a baryon.

more…

So is a “Crayon” a sub atomic particle?

bob(from black rock) said:

So is a “Crayon” a sub atomic particle?

Or a “Crapon”

bob(from black rock) said:

So is a “Crayon” a sub atomic particle?

If you apply the creche transformation it is.

CrazyNeutrino said:

Scientists just discovered 2 never-before-seen particles, and they’re refining our understanding of fundamental physics

Scientists just announced the discovery of two never-before-seen particles hiding inside data collected by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland.

The LHC is a 17-mile-long underground tunnel that hurls protons at each other at incredible speeds. Physicists study the particles that they break apart into.

Physicists predicted the existence of these two new particles a few years ago, but we had no hard evidence that they existed until now.

The two new particles reinforce the standard model of physics, which is a working theory that describes all the known particles in the universe. The discovery of the particles is also helping physicists learn more about one of the fundamental forces in the universe, strong force, which acts like glue and hold particles together. The research was published on Feb. 10 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The two new particles are named Xib’- and Xib*- (pronounced “zi-b-prime” and “zi-b-star,” Scientific American points out). Both Xib-and Xib*- are a type of particle called a baryon.

more…

What’s their quark structure? Being baryons they have three quarks (mesons have two). The subscript “b” says that one of the quarks is a bottom (aka beauty) quark. OK, from the Scientific American article they’re excited versions of “up-down-bottom”, and that the ground state (unexcited) version was found in 2012.

bob(from black rock) said:

So is a “Crayon” a sub atomic particle?

Come to think of it, why did a lepton leap?
At least now we know why a slepton slept.

I’ve mentioned this story before, but not for a while.
Leon Lederman, the prizewinning physicist, asked his subatomic particle colleague Tsung-Dao Lee to name a subatomic particle after himself – so that it would become the Leon. After all, Enrico Fermi has his Fermion, Satyendra Nath Bose has his Boson, etc.

mollwollfumble said:

bob(from black rock) said:

So is a “Crayon” a sub atomic particle?

Come to think of it, why did a lepton leap?

The word “lepton” may have been invented by Wolfgang Pauli in 1957, the year before he died, with the “lept-” part as a synonym for the word “light” meaning “not heavy”.

Got it. It originally comes from the Greek.
“Leptos” ie. “λεπτός” in Greek means “thin, fine, subtle, slender, delicate”, also “weak” according to a medical dictionary.
Rather nice in the physics sense because “leptons” interact only via the “weak” force.

Are these particles and various others discovered in/by particles accelerators common?
Or are they rare and thats why large numbers of collisions are needed to find just one

Cymek said:

Are these particles and various others discovered in/by particles accelerators common?
Or are they rare and thats why large numbers of collisions are needed to find just one

No, rare.
For starters, the B quark has been rare until now because of its high mass.

Recently, in the past 5 to 10 years however, new “B factories” have been constructed that churn out large numbers of B quarks.
But they still don’t find these new particles because they are particles in an “excited” state, which makes them even more massive than normal B quarks.

So you can only find them in the results from the most powerful particle accelerators or, with vanishingly small probability, among cosmic rays.