The journal of Physical Review Letters reports that CERN scientists use LHC’s recent discovery to explain pentaquark particles. The particle collider has revealed scientists the structure of the quarks for the first time, confirming once again that matter could have different states.
The first study that mentioned pentaquarks was conducted by scientist Murray Gell-Mann in 1969. He declared back then that there are other types of matter, depending on their neutrons and protons. His study revealed that neutrons and protons are made out of three types of particles called quarks, a discovery that has brought him the Nobel prize.
Although significant, Mann’s hypothesis has not been confirmed by later studies and experiments as scientists could not observe these particles. Fortunately, the Large Hadron Collider has captured these particles for the first time, acknowledging the fact that quarks do exist and that matter has different forms, as well.
Based on the description provided in the journal of Physical Review Letters, scientists used 7 and 8 TeV energy levels to spot the quarks. They were thus, able to see that the Lambda baryon cluster, which is highly unstable, consists of two types of quarks, the down quark and the charm quark. The latter is paired by the anti-charm quark particle, which can also be spotted within the disintegration of the Lambda baryon cluster.
The new discovery that CERN scientists have made might not be the groundbreaking finding they were expecting, but it is nevertheless, significant for the science community. According to researchers, the new pentaquark particles could be used to further study the formation and the evolution of black holes in space.
These particles are said to appear during the final stages of star collapse, right before the black hole is formed. As a consequence, researchers will keep a close eye on quarks to understand how stars evolve and what their ultimate goal is.
The future experiments that CERN experts will conduct will focus on existing varieties of quarks. The fact that the collider has managed to identify one pentaquark indicates scientists there could be other similar particles, as well.
The levels of energy produced by the particle collider will be gradually increased until the machinery will function at its full capacity. This is possible now due to the recent upgrades that have been performed on the system, allowing scientists to produce 13 TeV, instead of 8 TeV – the initial record that the LHC has set.
Image source: bbci.co.uk
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