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Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of a particle that had been predicted in theory, but never seen experimentally
Xi cc—the Newly Identified Particle
Dubbed Xi cc, the newly-identified particle is a kind of baryon, a subatomic particle comprised of three quarks. Virtually all the matter we can see is made of baryons, with protons and neutrons being the most common.
Quarks
Quarks are tiny particles that come in six “flavors” - two standard types that are light and four heavier varieties. For years, physicists have been on the lookout for baryons with two heavy quarks and they finally found one in Xi cc, which has two (heavy) charm quarks and one up (light) quark.
Found to be exactly as predicted, the mass of the newly discovered particle is approximately 3621 MeV, nearly four times heavier than a proton. If the mass of Xi cc was found to be much lower it would have revealed a major problem in the Standard Model.
Research on Xi cc
The unique particle wasn't observed directly by the LHCb experiment due to its extremely short lifetime and was instead recognized as decayed into a particle known as the lambda baryon, a kaon and two pions.
Finding a doubly heavy-quark baryon is of great interest as it will provide a unique tool to further probe quantum chromodynamics, the theory that describes the strong interaction, one of the four fundamental forces. Such particles will thus help us improve the predictive power of our theories.
Giovanni Passaleva, Spokesperson, LHCb collaboration
The new particle was particularly unique due to the way in which its quarks appeared to behave. Quarks don't have positions, but instead act more like waves. However, that wasn’t what the LHCb team found.
“In contrast to other baryons, in which the three quarks perform an elaborate dance around each other, a doubly heavy baryon is expected to act like a planetary system; where the two heavy quarks play the role of heavy stars orbiting one around the other, with the lighter quark orbiting around this binary system.”
Through studying Xi cc, physicists hope to determine how a system of two heavy quarks and one light quark acts. Critical insights can be gained by accurately calculating the formation of the particle and breakdown mechanisms, as well as its lifetime. This research could lead to significant revelations about the strong force that holds atoms together.
The LHCb team said the discovery of this new baryon was difficult and only made possible by the high generation rate of heavy quarks at the LHC. The organization said its distinctive abilities to identify decay products with superb efficiency also helped to make the discovery possible. They added that they now hope to find more doubly-heavy baryons.
While the discovery of Xi cc appeared to confirm the Standard Model, a previous LHCb experiment showed potential deviations from the established theory of particle physics.
In that study, LHCb researchers examined the decays of B0 mesons that produce an excited kaon and either two electrons or two muons. While a muon is 200 times heavier than an electron, the Standard Model says its interactions are essentially identical to those of the electron, a quality referred to as lepton universality.
Conclusion
Lepton universality states that electrons and muons should be generated with the same probability in this particular B0 decay, with a small variation due to mass difference. However, LHCb researchers found decays involving muons occur less often than those involving electrons.
This article was updated on the 25th April, 2019.
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