To use this site, please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page.
This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content, and analyzing our website traffic. By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies.
Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
GENEVA (Reuters) — Scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have discovered three subatomic particles never seen before as they work to unlock the building blocks of the universe, the European nuclear research center CERN said last month.
The 27-kilometer-long LHC at CERN is the machine that found the Higgs boson particle, which along with its linked energy field is thought to be vital to the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
Now scientists at CERN said they have observed a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks.” adding three members to the list of new hadrons found at the LHC.
They will help physicists better understand how quarks bind together into composite particles.
Quarks are elementary particles that usually combine in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons such as the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei.
More rarely, however, they can also combine into four-quark and five-quark particles, or tetraquarks and pentaquarks.
“The more analyses we perform, the more kinds of exotic hadrons we find,” physicist Niels Tuning said in a statement.
