<p> Scientists using the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator have discovered a new system of five particles all in a single analysis.<br /><br />The exceptionality of this discovery is that observing five new states all at once is a rather unique event, researchers said.<br /><br />The LHCb experiment is one of seven particle physics detector experiments collecting data at the Large Hadron Collider accelerator at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research).<br /><br />The collaboration has announced the measurement of a very rare particle decay and evidence of a new manifestation of matter-antimatter asymmetry, to name just two examples.<br /><br />The new particles were found to be excited states – a particle state that has a higher energy than the absolute minimum configuration (or ground state) – of a particle called Omega-c-zero.<br /><br />This Omega-c-zero is a baryon, a particle with three quarks, containing two "strange" and one "charm" quark.<br /><br />Omega-c-zero decays via the strong force into another baryon, called Xi-c-plus, (containing a "charm", a "strange" and an "up" quark) and a kaon K-.<br /><br />Then the Xi-c-plusparticle decays in turn into a proton p, a kaon K- and a pion p+.<br />From the analysis of the trajectories and the energy left in the detector by all the particles in this final configuration, the LHCb collaboration could trace back the initial event - the decay of the Omega-c-zero – and its excited states.<br /><br />These particle states are named, according to the standard convention, Oc(3000)0, Oc(3050)0, Oc(3066)0, Oc(3090)0 and Oc(3119)0. The numbers indicate their masses in megaelectronvolts (MeV), as measured by LHCb.<br /><br />The next step will be the determination of the quantum numbers of these new particles – characteristic numbers used to identify the properties of a specific particle – and the determination of their theoretical significance.<br /><br />This discovery will contribute to understanding how the three constituent quarks are bound inside a baryon and also to probing the correlation between quarks, which plays a key role in describing multi-quark states, such as tetraquarks and pentaquarks. <br /></p>
<p> Scientists using the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator have discovered a new system of five particles all in a single analysis.<br /><br />The exceptionality of this discovery is that observing five new states all at once is a rather unique event, researchers said.<br /><br />The LHCb experiment is one of seven particle physics detector experiments collecting data at the Large Hadron Collider accelerator at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research).<br /><br />The collaboration has announced the measurement of a very rare particle decay and evidence of a new manifestation of matter-antimatter asymmetry, to name just two examples.<br /><br />The new particles were found to be excited states – a particle state that has a higher energy than the absolute minimum configuration (or ground state) – of a particle called Omega-c-zero.<br /><br />This Omega-c-zero is a baryon, a particle with three quarks, containing two "strange" and one "charm" quark.<br /><br />Omega-c-zero decays via the strong force into another baryon, called Xi-c-plus, (containing a "charm", a "strange" and an "up" quark) and a kaon K-.<br /><br />Then the Xi-c-plusparticle decays in turn into a proton p, a kaon K- and a pion p+.<br />From the analysis of the trajectories and the energy left in the detector by all the particles in this final configuration, the LHCb collaboration could trace back the initial event - the decay of the Omega-c-zero – and its excited states.<br /><br />These particle states are named, according to the standard convention, Oc(3000)0, Oc(3050)0, Oc(3066)0, Oc(3090)0 and Oc(3119)0. The numbers indicate their masses in megaelectronvolts (MeV), as measured by LHCb.<br /><br />The next step will be the determination of the quantum numbers of these new particles – characteristic numbers used to identify the properties of a specific particle – and the determination of their theoretical significance.<br /><br />This discovery will contribute to understanding how the three constituent quarks are bound inside a baryon and also to probing the correlation between quarks, which plays a key role in describing multi-quark states, such as tetraquarks and pentaquarks. <br /></p>