The LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has
reported the discovery of a class of particles known as pentaquarks. The
collaboration has submitted today a paper reporting these findings (link is
external) to the journal Physical Review Letters. “The pentaquark is not just
any new particle,” said LHCb spokesperson Guy Wilkinson. “It represents a way
to aggregate quarks, namely the fundamental constituents of ordinary protons
and neutrons, in a pattern that has never been observed before in over 50 years
of experimental searches. Studying its properties may allow us to understand better
how ordinary matter, the protons and neutrons from which we’re all made, is
constituted.”
It is a particle consisting of five quarks (any of a group
of subatomic particles carrying a fractional electric charge) bounded together.
These qauarks are elementary particles that exist in six variations known as
flavors having unusual names of up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm. These
elementary particles bind together in different combinations to form a range of
composite particles. Most commonly known combinations are neutrons and protons,
consisting of three quarks each. Applications: This discovery will allow
physicists to understand the quantum chromodynamics (i.e. study of strong
fundamental force describing the interactions between quarks and gluons which
make up proton, neutron and pion). In addition, it might help to shed light on
the physics of neutron stars. Note: In 1964, US physicist Murray Gell-Mann had
revolutionised the understanding of the structure of matter. He had proposed
that a category of particles known as baryons, which includes protons and
neutrons and three fractionally charged objects called quarks. For this work
Gell-Mann was awarded Nobel Prize in physics in 1969.
EmoticonEmoticon