Scientists find mystery (subatomic) particle | BBC

[Ediacara]

Scientists find mystery particle

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

Scientists have found a sub-atomic particle they cannot explain using current theories of energy and matter.

The discovery was made by researchers based at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation in Tsukuba.

Classified as X(3872), the particle was seen fleetingly in an atom smasher and has been dubbed the "mystery meson".

The Japanese team says understanding its existence may require a change to the Standard Model, the accepted theory of the way the Universe is constructed.

More at the BBC

[Terwilliger]

1. damn!!

protons, neutrons, and electrons are SO last century :D

Will this new particle work with string theory? Is it all coming together, or still a LONG way from fruition?

[Beetwasher]

2. Cool

Thanks for posting this!

[omshanti]

3. cool! Any nuclear physicists on DU?

Can you explain the implications?

[benburch]

6. I am not a Physicist, though that was my training...

I *did* work at Fermilab in the Computing Department for a number of years however.

(On Edit: I should have read the article before posting...)

Since it seems to have been confirmed in two places, it will have to be studied. It still could be a know particle under conditions we don't expect, for example. A lot more work has to be put into this before we need to modify the Standard Model.

-Ben

[psychopomp]

7. First produced in Japan

Reproduced in Illinois.

[papau]

12. You've got to like a 4 quark meson the size of two protons!

At least I am enjoy this!

:-)

[Neutrino]

8. that's Particle Physics

Nuclear Physics deals with the model and mechanics of the nucleus.

[omshanti]

10. Hey at least I didn't say New-Cyu-lar

[karlschneider]

4. So they finally located Chimpy's brain, eh?

hmm

[DebJ]

21. LOL! Thanks I needed that.

[Swede]

5. Fascinating stuff. Although the change may not be a radical

change in physics theory.

[Forkboy]

9. A kick

for the science types,and those like me who wish they were science types :)

[underpants]

11. Incredible astounding THEY ACTUALLY FOUND W'S BRAIN???

:bounce:

[Patriot_Spear]

13. Ah-ha! But how does it work within String Theory? hhhhhmmmmmm?

n/t

[Demonaut]

14. Someone finally found Bush,s brain and hes going to England to retrieve it

lol

[On the Road]

15. Maybe This Will Clear Things Up

Belle found the new state while searching for missing states of charmonium (bound states of a charmed quark and a charmed antiquark) in B-meson decays, and X(3872) may turn out to be a particularly interesting example of the species. But the mass of X, 3872 MeV (million electron volts), so nearly equals the sum of two charmed meson masses, that X(3872) might turn out to be something entirely new: a fragile molecule binding a D0meson to an anti D*0 meson. The same terrain is also considered a hunting ground for "hybrid" mesons made not of a charmed quark and antiquark, but of a charmed quark and antiquark plus a gluon. A puzzle for the quarkonium interpretation is that Belle has looked for, but not found, the "radiative transitions" to other charmonium states, like the transitons by which ordinary atoms radiate light.

Or maybe not.

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/resultoftheweek/whatisit_10-2.html

[Dudley_DUright]

16. Makes perfect sense to me

but then again I am a physicist. :-)

[Dudley_DUright]

17. The big deal here is that this type of particle

(2 quarks and 2 antiquarks) has never been seen before. In the "standard model" there are three quark paricles (called baryons) like protons and neutrons and also two quark particles (called mesons) along with the nonquark leptons (like electrons and neutrinos). However, as the article mentions, this might be a previously unknown bound state of two mesons (totaling four quarks). Back when quarks were first discovered George Zweig wanted to call them aces (Murray Gell-Mann came up with quarks from the phrase in James Joyce's ULYSSES "Three quarks for Muster Mark"). Looks like Zweig's Aces might not have been so far off the mark after all since we now have a particle with 4 quarks (aces?).

[pmbryant]

18. Thanks for the explanation

Since the 'standard model' is already something of a hodge-podge, am I right in suspecting that this additional complication, while interesting, is not anything fundamentally new.

Or am I missing something?

:-)

--Peter

[Dudley_DUright]

20. No, you are correct

There is nothing in the model that says only particles with two or three quarks can exist. However, the idea of quark confinement does mandate that single quarks are not found in nature (fractional charge single quark searches have been done in the past with negative results). It is just a surprise since all the particles we have seen so far are either mesons (2) or baryons (3).

[LifeDuringWartime]

19. hmm

maybe it's the long sought after graviton? probably not, if it decays into other known substances, but it's a possibility i suppose.

[SpiralHawk]

22. This will solve the Great Cosmic Riddle of the

Chronosynclastic Infundibilium. For sure.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.