Large Hadron Collider scientists discover new particles: pentaquarks

[Hand of Evil]

take it has you will...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...les-pentaquarks/ar-AAcWNfX?ocid=ansguardian11

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva have discovered a previously unseen class of particles that demonstrate there is a new state of matter.

Researchers working on the collider’s LHCb detector spotted signals that are produced when five subatomic particles called quarks combine together to form pentaquarks.

“It is an important result,” said Sheldon Stone, professor of physics at Syracuse University in New York. “It shows that there is a new state of matter. Although pentaquark states were thought possible from the dawn of the quark model, the theory that explains the structure of baryons like the proton, they had never been seen before.”

The discovery was made from data collected before the Large Hadron Collider switched on again earlier this year after a planned upgrade which allowed it to run at higher energy.

Related: Something to watch for in the new data from the Large Hadron Collider

Scientists’ understanding of the structure of matter was transformed in 1964 when the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann proposed that protons and neutrons were made up of three new types of particles called quarks. The work earned him the Nobel prize in 1969.

Researchers on the LHCb team found evidence for pentaquarks after studying the disintegration of an unstable ball of three quarks called a Lambda baryon. The exotic pentaquarks they observed are made up of two up quarks, one down quark, one charm quark and one anti-charm quark. Details of the finding are reported today and have been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.

Guy Wilkinson, LHCb spokesperson, said the discovery confirms a prediction made by Gell-Mann more than half a century ago. “It’s been a big big puzzle,” he said.

“One place where pentaquarks may be relevant is when stars collapse and form neutron stars, the final stage of collapse before some go on to make black holes.

“In that environment, it’s quite possible that pentaquarks are formed, and if that’s so, it could have significant consequences for what happens to the stars, what they look like and what is their ultimate fate.”

Running at a higher energy than ever, the Large Hadron Collider will give researchers a chance to study the particles in more detail, and to look for other varieties of pentaquark. “Having found one, it’s highly likely there are others out there,” said Wilkinson.

 

[Umbran]

I would not bill it as a "new state of matter". It isn't like there's now "solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and pentaquarks".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So...if the Higgs Boson is the "God Particle", does that make the pentaquark the "Satan Particle"?

 

[Umbran]

So...if the Higgs Boson is the "God Particle", does that make the pentaquark the "Satan Particle"?

Only if you figure, "that which comes to the news first after God must be Satan". It isn't like the pentaquark in any way runs counter to the Higgs boson, or anything dramatic like that.

The pentaquark is, really, just a difficult-to-see, short-lived (under current circumstances) state with five quarks stuck together in a bundle. Protons and neutrons have three quarks each, this has five. That's about it. This discovery is kind of the sub-atomic equivalent of the late-day "discovery" of new elements - where you slam stuff together, and if it sticks together long enough, you call it an "element", where "long enough" is fractions of a second.

It has some possible impact on the collapse of stars on their way to being a neutron star or black hole, and might help characterize exactly how things explode on the way to their doom. It is a confirmation of quantum chromodynamics, which predicted these things before most of us were born, but not a big surprise.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Pentaquark => pentagram.

 

[MechaPilot]

Pentaquark => pentagram.

Sure, but association of the Pentagram with Satan is part of the church's attempt to either co-opt or demonize aspects of other competing religions.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To be fair, the satanic types adopted it as fast as they could.

 

[MechaPilot]

To be fair, the satanic types adopted it as fast as they could.

Definitely. But then, they were making the whole thing up on the fly and had no established rituals/parameters for worshiping Satan. And that assumes genuine worship. The modern church of Satan, as I understand it, doesn't so much worship Satan as it does perform pseudo-magic and rituals intended to mock/offend regular religions.

 

[Janx]

in any event, why do they keep trying to find what stuff is made of only to then try to find out what that stuff is made of?

Is there ever a bottom?

Is it going anywhere?

Is it useful?

Can I get a PentaQuark pendant for my wife for christmas?

 

[MechaPilot]

in any event, why do they keep trying to find what stuff is made of only to then try to find out what that stuff is made of?

Is there ever a bottom?

Is it going anywhere?

Is it useful?

Can I get a PentaQuark pendant for my wife for christmas?

They ask the questions because that's what science does.

As far as "is it going anywhere," maybe. Confirming the theory with practical experiments is the first step in developing technologies based on those discoveries.

Look at the Higgs Boson. From my understanding of it, it is responsible for giving things mass. Imagine what we could do if we could manipulate the mass of objects. The ability to reduce the mass of a spaceship would make long distance space travel less difficult. The ability to alter the mass of an object could protect the Earth from asteroids and rogue planets. In a more mundane situation, imagine being able to change the weight on your weight bench by turning a dial and altering the mass of the weights on the barbell.