Two recovered particles and allusions to a third revealed at the hadron collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest atom atom atomizer in the world, has discovered at least two previously unknown particles.

According to a statement from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs the LHC, the 27-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring near Geneva has recently discovered two baryons and a hint of water. another particle. Baryons are fundamental subatomic particles each composed of three quarks. Quarks, meanwhile, are even smaller particles that come in different "flavors": high, low, high, low, strange and charming.

Each type of baryon has a different mix of quarks. Protons, for example, are baryons and consist of two quarks and one quark each, according to the statement. The two newly discovered particles are classified as lower baryons. [7 Strange Facts About Quarks]

The first, named Σb (6097) +, is composed of a lower quark and two quarks up, while the second, named Σb (6097) -, is composed of a lower quark and two quarks down.

The LHCb (b means beauty) experiment found these particles by breaking protons together and examining the basic rate of some particle decomposition events. The experiment aimed for "bumps" or peaks above this rate, which could indicate previously unknown particle signals, according to the release.

Similar particles were observed in a previous experiment at the Fermilab Laboratory in Illinois, but these particles differed in that they had less mass than their newly discovered siblings, according to the release. The bottom baryons discovered at CERN are about 6 times more massive than protons, according to the statement. The number "6097" refers to their mass in millions of electron volts or MeV. (The mass of a proton is about 938 MeV).

Regarding the third potential particle, the researchers only found clues of its existence. Named Z under c^–(4100), this particle could be a strange meson, an unstable particle type that survives briefly during high energy collisions and consists of two quarks and two antiquarks.

CERN collisions showed that this elusive meson existed, but it was below the statistical threshold used by physicists to claim the "discovery" of a new particle.

Originally published on Live Science.