Three new Exotic subatomic particles discovered with the Large Hadron Collider

Tags: Science and Technology

The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment has  discovered three never-before-seen particles.

• What is the discovery?

• CERN, (European Organization for Nuclear Research) was investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the “beauty quark”, or “b quark”.

• The three “exotic” particles, a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks” were found.

• These are a kind of new hadrons.

• The discovery will help physicists understand how quarks bind together in these composite particles.

• What are Quarks?

• Quark is a fundamental component of matter and is defined as an elementary particle.

• These quarks combine to produce composite particles called hadrons.

• They usually combine together in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons.

• The most stable of these are neutrons and protons which are components of the atomic nucleus.

• They can also combine into four-quark and five-quark particles, called tetraquarks and pentaquarks.

• These exotic hadrons were predicted by theorists nearly six decades ago.

• Tetraquarks and Pentaquarks

• Atoms contain smaller particles called neutrons and protons, which are made up of three quarks each.

• Most of the exotic hadrons discovered in the past two decades are tetraquarks or pentaquarks.

• They contain a charm quark and a charm antiquark.