First Charm Tetraquark Detected
Newly discovered tetraquark from CERN is made from 2 charm quarks and 2 charm anti-quarks. And we have never seen anything like it. It may explain a lot about the strong nuclear force.
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One of the detectors at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN – the experiment LHC Beauty (LHCb) recently acquired one heck of a success. Very exotic particles were observed with it. A tetraquark that is made from four charm quarks.
Physicists think it is the first representative of a group of so far unseen particles. This discovery should allow us to better understand quarks and how they group into larger particles – such as hadrons, including protons and neutrons. But quarks usually group into groups of two or three. But some time ago, scientists predicted the existence of tetra and pentaquarks to now finally discover one.
Such exotic particles as very interesting for physicists as they can use them to study the strong nuclear force – one of the fundamental physical forces which binds protons and neutrons in the atomic cores. Getting a better understanding of the strong nuclear force could maybe open the doors towards the long-awaited new physics.
As Giovanni Passaleva – the speaker for the large LHCb Collaboration team which includes over 1400 experts from over 19 countries – particles made from four quarks are always exotic. But the new tetraquark is just insanely exotic. It is the first-ever observed tetraquark made by four heavy quark of a single type. In this case, we are talking about 2 charm quarks and two charm anti-quarks. So far, we have only seen tetraquarks that had a maximum of two heavy quarks, and never have they had more than 2 quarks of the same type.
The charm tetraquark is now going to be intensively researched. The study of similar extreme particles can push current physical theories to their limits – in this case, it will likely focus on the behavior of quarks and how they combine into larger particles. The researchers also believe that in time we will discover more particles in this new exotic group.
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