New Particle Discovered At CERN

New submitter ph4cr writes with news that a new particle has been discovered at CERN that confirms theoretical predictions. A pre-print of the academic paper is available at the arXiv (PDF). From the article: "Physicists from the University of Zurich have discovered a previously unknown particle composed of three quarks in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator. A new baryon could thus be detected for the first time at the LHC. The baryon known as Xi_b^* confirms fundamental assumptions of physics regarding the binding of quarks. ... In the course of proton collisions in the LHC at CERN, physicists Claude Amsler, Vincenzo Chiochia and Ernest Aguiló from the University of Zurich's Physics Institute managed to detect a baryon with one light and two heavy quarks. The particle Xi_b^* comprises one 'up,' one 'strange' and one 'bottom' quark (usb), is electrically neutral and has a spin of 3/2 (1.5). Its mass is comparable to that of a lithium atom. The new discovery means that two of the three baryons predicted in the usb composition by theory have now been observed."

Re:WTF am I supposed to call this thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's LaTeX, you moron. It's the Greek letter Xi with a "b" in the subscript and a "*" in the superscript. So just call it Xi-b-star or Xi-b-asterix. Simple.

Funny.

[Milharis]

I find it funny that TFS talks about a Xi_b^* baryon with usb quarks, and goes on about its spin, as if it was common knowlegde, but has to precise that 3/2 is 1.5.

Re:Well that was certainly worth €10 billion

[jo_ham]

Indeed, without having that massive boondoggle at CERN we could have funded at least 1 more month of the Iraq war!

Baryon Discoveries

[Snowtred]

I just want to provide a little context to this announcement. As shown in the article, this is a Baryon, made up of 3 quarks. With 6 possible types of quarks, and 3 spots, this makes for many possible combinations of Baryons, a lot that have been found. Here is a current list of baryons:

PDG Baryon List [lbl.gov]

The proton and neutron are the p and n in the top left. The new Cascade (Xi_b) will be in the bottom right, in the "Bottom quark" section.

So this is neat and all, but hyped up a bit because its the LHC. A couple of these new Baryon (and also Mesons) are confirmed every year.

Re:WTF am I supposed to call this thing?

[cyberchondriac]

I didn't mod it down, but I can answer: probably because there's absolutely no call for calling someone a moron over a simple enough question, especially where something like QM is concerned, but even more because it assumes the OP should have knowledge of LaTex, as though everyone in the world should and anyone who doesn't is stupid.
Funny how the geeks never liked being called "nerd" and "dork" by the jocks in school, but in their own climate, quite a few of them dish it out just as bad. Now who's the bully? Honestly, unprovoked name-calling is just flat-out childish and mean spirited... thus, trollish.

Re:WTF am I supposed to call this thing?

[Cabriel]

You are not everyone. I was beaten up about once a week on average for it from grade 2 until grade 8. I wish I was exxagerating, but I'm not. Not everyone is given the lavish life you enjoyed.

So, shut the fuck up, Bully. You didn't live the hardest life evar (and neither did I. I know because I'm still alive).