麻豆淫院

February 26, 2016

Scientists discover new subatomic particle

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麻豆淫院icists have discovered a new elementary particle鈥攖he latest member to be added to聽the exotic species known as tetraquarks.聽

The discovery was made by scientists 鈥� including Lancaster's Professor Iain Bertram - involved in the DZero international collaboration at Fermilab, the US Government's laboratory specialising in high-energy particle physics.

Professor Bertram said:聽"It is聽exciting to discover a new and unusual particle that will help us understand the strong interaction- one of the four known聽fundamental interactions in physics."聽

DZero is one of two experiments at Fermilab's Tevatron collider. Although the Tevatron was retired in 2011, the experiments continue to analyse billions of previously recorded events from its collisions.聽

The tetraquark observation came as a surprise when DZero scientists first saw聽hints in July 2015 of the new particle, called X(5568), named for its mass鈥�5568 megaelectronvolts.

Professor Bertram worked on the analysis, developing the model used to simulate the X(5568).聽

Quarks are point-like elementary that typically come in packages of two or three, the most familiar of which are the聽proton and neutron (each is made of three quarks).聽

There are six types, or "flavours," of quark to choose from: up,聽down, strange, charm, bottom and top. Each of these also has an antimatter counterpart.

While all other observed tetraquarks contain at least two of the same flavor, X(5568) has four different flavors -聽 up, down, strange and bottom.

More information: "Observation of a new Bs0蟺卤 state" paper FERMILAB-PUB-16-038-E. arXiv:1602.07588 [hep-ex]

Provided by Lancaster University

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