At the LHC, two new baryons (subatomic particles, strong force) have been discovered. Baryons are one of the two families that comprise the hadrons. The other family is that of the mesons.
The existence of the two was predicted by Canadians in 2009, but never actual seen.
This was now done in the LHCb experiment which investigates the differences between matter and antimatter by studying the b-quarks; b stands for beauty (ex-bottom), a type of quark particle. The other quark types (flavours) are up, down, strange, charm and truth. (ex-top).
Baryons are made of three types of quarks: beauty, down and strange; d and s are not heavy, but
Thanks to the heavyweight b quarks, [the two new baryons] are more than six times as massive as the proton. But the particles are more than just the sum of their parts: their mass also depends on how they are configured.
CERN announce:
▻http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/11/lhcb-observes-two-new-baryon-particles
The LHCb experiment:
▻http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/lhcb-public
The Canadian annouce:
▻http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/new-subatomic-particles-predicted-by-canadians-found-at-cern-1.2840199
Lewis and Woloshyn had predicted the composition and mass of the new baryons using a computer calculation based on a theory called lattice quantum chromodynamics, which describes the mathematical rules for how quarks behave.
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One interesting thing about the two new particles is that they are made up of exactly the same three quarks, whose masses add up the same number – but CERN researchers detected that the two new particles don’t have the same mass.
That’s because each quark has a quantum mechanical property called “spin” – a physics phenomenon that only applies to very small particles. When the spins of two quarks are aligned, they add energy that manifests as additional mass. That makes the the Xi_b*- baryon a little heavier than the Xi_b’- baryon.
#quantum_physics