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“Excited neutral Xi-b baryon”
MSNBC.com
29 Apr 12
Thanks to NHNE-pulse
European researchers say they have discovered a new subatomic particle that helps confirm our knowledge about how quarks bind — one of the basic forces in the shaping of matter.
The CERN physics research center said Friday that the particle was discovered at the Compact Muon Solenoid, one of the Large Hadron Collider's two main general-purpose detectors, in collaboration with the University of Zurich.
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The particle, known as an excited neutral Xi-b baryon, could not be detected directly because it was too unstable. Instead, its existence was inferred by the pattern of its decay into other subatomic particles.
The Xi-b particle, like other baryons such as protons and neutrons, is made up of three quarks. Protons and neutrons are combinations of "up" and "down" quarks (two up and one down for protons, two down and one up for neutrons). In contrast, the newly detected Xi-b particles consist of an up, strange and bottom quark. The particles are electrically neutral, with a spin of 3/2 and a mass comparable to that of a lithium atom, University of Zurich researchers said.
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"The discovery of the new particle confirms the theory of how quarks bind and therefore helps to understand the strong interaction, one of the four basic forces of physics which determines the structure of matter," the university said in a news release.
CMS physicist Vincenzo Chiochia, one of the co-leaders of the search, told the Symmetry Breaking blog that "finding this complicated decay in such a messy event makes us confident in our abilities to find other new particles in the future.”
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There’s a gorgeous photo of the Large Hadron Collider here –
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47217745...ience-science/
