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posted by mrpg on Friday July 07 2017, @10:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the sometimes-collisions-are-good dept.

LHC double heavy particle to shine light on strong force

Scientists have detected a new particle at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern.

The discovery will help researchers learn more about the so-called "strong force" which holds the centres of atoms together.

The existence of the new particle was theoretically predicted but this is the first time it has been identified.

The details of the Xi-cc++ particle were presented at a high-energy physics conference in Venice.

[...] This is the first time that researchers have confirmed the existence of [a particle] with two heavy quarks. According to Prof Guy Wilkinson of Oxford University, there is an intriguing difference between the new particle and the ones that have been discovered before.

"In contrast to other particles of this type, in which the three quarks perform an elaborate dance around each other, a particle with two heavy quarks is expected to act like a planetary system, where the heavy quarks are like two stars orbiting one around the other, with the lighter quark orbiting around this binary system."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:39AM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:39AM (#536069)

    The existence of the new particle was theoretically predicted but this is the first time it has been identified.

    This reminds me of a few years ago when literally hundreds of theories were generated per month that "predicted" a certain result now thought to be a fluke:

    In the interval between the December 2015 and August 2016 results, the anomaly generated considerable interest in the scientific community, including about 500 theoretical studies

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess [wikipedia.org]

    It doesn't mean much to predict something if you predict anything and everything then ignore the wrong ones...

  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday July 07 2017, @12:36PM (7 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday July 07 2017, @12:36PM (#536085)

    The point is that the newly discovered particle is pretty standard stuff. Quarks bind together; and this is just mixing the known quarks together in a different arrangement. It isn't a new "fundamental" particle, just a different arrangement of known "fundamental" particles.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday July 07 2017, @03:34PM (3 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday July 07 2017, @03:34PM (#536141) Homepage
      Yeah, but I didn't think that anyone was using a planetary model for subatomic particles any more?
      a) These things exist as proability densities in a field, not as billiard-ball-like particles
      b) The more scientific popular literature surrounding recent sub-atomic physics has presented the baryons not having 3 quarks in them, merely 3 excess quarks, amongst a soup of virtual quarks and anti-quarks. (Most of the time the LHC is seeing these virtual particles interact, I remember hearing) So the planatary view seems double bogus.

      And on top of that, what do they mean by "heavy"? 2nd generation? That wouls make no sense, as Xi and Omega families do have well-established members with 2 heavy quarks in them - some of them dating back even to the 60s. If they mean "not u, d, s", when what is the intrinsic property that distinguishes those 3 from the other 3? "The three which we've previously seen doubled up in a baryon" is not an intrinsic property.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 07 2017, @10:17PM (1 child)

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 07 2017, @10:17PM (#536289) Journal

        I wonder what could be found with equipment that is able to sense probability densities?

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:16AM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:16AM (#536469) Homepage
          The amplitudes are mathematical abstractions - you don't detect them, you calculate them.
          Anything you detect has a near 100% chance of being what you detected (hence the almost paradox that if you examine something often enough, it will never change state. Weeping angels, and all that...)
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday July 14 2017, @01:51PM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday July 14 2017, @01:51PM (#539108)

        No, but just like with electrons, protons and neutrons in atoms, you can still "predict" particle existence based on naive gluing together different fundamental particles. The thing about sea quarks and valence quarks arises because the binding energy is so strong that there is enough free energy in the system to "almost" make new particles (sea quarks). This makes it hard to calculate hadron masses because the perturbation theory that physicists use almost breaks down with such big energies. There is a whole field of physics, QCD, devoted to calculating hadron binding energies.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 07 2017, @05:56PM (2 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday July 07 2017, @05:56PM (#536200)

      What I always wonder is whether these particles can exist outside of the context of the accelerator.
      Nobody claims that the ensemble "two bent radiators, a blown tire and a cloud of fluids traveling at high speed" exists outside of the context of a car accident.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @09:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @09:22PM (#536271)

        There are far more of these kind of particles outside the accelerator than inside. The momenta of the cosmic rays that slam into our atmosphere are many many orders of magnitude greater [wikipedia.org] than what the LHC can provide.

      • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:43AM

        by stormwyrm (717) on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:43AM (#536395) Journal
        The early universe was hot enough for these and other particles like them to exist.
        --
        Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday July 07 2017, @03:01PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday July 07 2017, @03:01PM (#536132) Homepage
    Digamma?

    Everything I know about the digamma particle I learnt from this infographic:
      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Digamma_Stigma.svg/200px-Digamma_Stigma.svg.png

    FFS!
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves