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The hunt for the Higgs boson is one of the most fundamental quests in physics history. Entire particle accelerators have been built, at least in part, to detect the elusive particle that mediates mass in the quantum world, thereby shoring up the last missing piece of the Standard Model. But don’t be fooled into thinking that just because the Higgs has been found — or, at least, something that looks like the Higgs has been found — there’s nothing left in the subatomic realm to be discovered. On the contrary.
Enter the Zc(3900) — an odd particle containing four quarks. This is the first time a four-quark particle has ever been discovered in the wild. Usually, quarks combine in groups of twos and threes creating common particles known as hadrons. Protons and neutrons are ‘everyday’ examples of three-quark hadrons (baryons); pions and kaons are ‘not-so-everyday’ examples of two-quark hadrons (a.k.a. mesons).
But the Zc(3900) seems to be a trendsetter. It appears it has gathered together four quarks — one “charm” and one “anti-charm quark,” plus one “down” and one “anti-down quark” — to create a jumbo hadron. Technically, this particle is a ‘tetraquark’ — a four-quark meson — that has until now has just been a hypothetical form of matter.
Yes it was. I'm not sure how anyone can miss it since it's the thread right before this one in the science forum:
Originally posted by shaneslaughta
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this was posted yesterday.
Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Yes it was. I'm not sure how anyone can miss it since it's the thread right before this one in the science forum:
Originally posted by shaneslaughta
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this was posted yesterday.
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