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Scientists Have Detected a New Particle At the Large Hadron Collider At CERN (bbc.com) 86

Posted by BeauHD from the force-is-strong-with-this-one dept.
New submitter ag144 writes: First time witnessed, the Large Hadron Collider finds predicted double-heavy particle. BBC reports: "Nearly all the matter that we see around us is made of neutrons and protons, which form the centers of atoms. These are made up of three smaller particles called quarks which can be either light or heavy. There are, however, six different types of quarks which combine in different ways to form other kinds of particle. Those that have been detected so far contain at most, one heavy quark. This is the first time that researchers have confirmed the existence of one with two heavy quarks. The research team will now measure the properties of the Xi-cc++ to establish how this new arrangement of quarks behaves and how the strong force holds the system together. They also expect to find more double heavy quark particles. Another unusual property of the particle is that it has two positive charges double that of the proton and it is four times heavier."
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Scientists Have Detected a New Particle At the Large Hadron Collider At CERN More

Scientists Have Detected a New Particle At the Large Hadron Collider At CERN

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  • Two Positive Charges? (Score:3)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Friday July 07, 2017 @02:09AM (#54761941)

    I wonder if there's a similar particle with two negative charges, that could be used instead of electrons for a more powerful replacement for electricity, or something. Any EEs that could speculate on the potential (no pun intended) effects of that?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes there is, Anti-Xi-cc++, the anti-particle to Xi-cc++. No, it won't. If you want more powerful electrons just increase the voltage.

    • Re: Two Positive Charges? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Particles like these are very explody, and are detected by analyzing the debris from their disintegration.
      There is a phenomenon where two electrons pair up to act as one. It's called superconductivity.

    • You're thinking way too small.

      If this is real, and stable (given that they didn't even bring up the question, and that the article is at the traditional Slashdot-level of understanding, I'm guessing it's not, because these articles are never anything excition), it'd absolutely transform our understanding of quantum mechanics. Things we think are impossible would become easy.

      But it's not, and it's not, and it won't, and they aren't, at least not in any way that will ever show up on Slashdot.

      Also... really?

      • Re:Two Positive Charges? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07, 2017 @02:50AM (#54762047)

        According to
        http://www.zeit.de/wissen/2017-07/cern-teilchen-baryon-lhc-teilchenbeschleuniger-genf-physik
        the particle, called Xi cc++ lasted for 0.0000000000005 seconds.

        Philipp

      • If this is real, and stable

        Real, yes, stable absolutely not! Heavy quarks in bound states decay very rapidly. For example the other well known bound states containing two heavy "quarks" (actually a quark and anti-quark so the headline is technically correct, which of course is the best form of correct) have lifetimes of 7.2e-21s (J/Psi) and 1.2e-20s (upsilon) although a better comparable lifetime would be 2e-13s which is the Lambda_c which contains a single c quark and so, unlike the mesons, has to decay through weak interactions ra

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ASDFnz ( 472824 )

      There will be. The anti-matter equivalent will correspond to that but that doesent actualy do what you want.

      However electricity is actual a function of electrons (a leptron called electron neutrino) and they carry a negative charge... SO, these new particles with two positive charges will attract twice as many elections and that is more along the lines as you are thinking.

      Unfortunately, that also means that it would take twice as much energy to force the electrons to move (i.e. electricity). In the end,

      • With the same leakage rates, generating the same amount of loss/heat? Does it then react the same at all temperatures?

      • However electricity is actual a function of electrons (a leptron called electron neutrino) and they carry a negative charge

        No, the electron neutrino is neutral, just like every neutrino. It's the electron which carries the charge. The reason electrons carry charge is because they can move through a conductive material. Apart from being exceedingly unstable this particle will only ever carry electric charge in a plasma because in materials baryons have enormously higher masses and are subject to the strong nuclear force.

        The far higher mass and the strong nuclear charge means that they bind together to form nuclei which are s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Altrag ( 195300 )

          The reason electrons carry charge is because they can move through a conductive material

          Uhh no. Electrons carry charge intrinsically. Moving through a conductive material is not necessary (though a moving charge -- whether from an electron or any other charged particle -- gives rise to magnetic forces. Which is not the same as the intrinsic magnetic moment that an electron also has due to its spin, though the two types of magnetism being named similarly is definitely not coincidence either.) Check out this [youtube.com] Veritasium video, and the related minutephysics video he links to, for a bit of a gr

          • Uhh no. Electrons carry charge intrinsically. Moving through a conductive material is not necessary...

            Oh dear. Electricity is the motion of charge through a conductor. Hence the reason an electron carries the charge in a conductor is because (a) it has a charge and (b) it can move through materials. The video you linked is nothing more than a description of how electric and magnetic fields are linked via a Lorentz boost which has almost nothing to do with what we are talking about but note how it did say that the electrons moved to carry the current, no neutrinos in sight!

            in materials baryons have enormously higher masses and are subject to the strong nuclear force

            this is not why, or at least not the immediate issue. We need to figure out a way to keep these kind of particles around long enough...

            No actually we don't because natur

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Altrag ( 195300 )

              OK so this is old but just.. wow..

              Electricity is the motion of charge through a conductor.

              I guess that's one way to define it. But that's not the same as the charge of the electron, which is intrinsic.

              it is the electron, and not the proton, which is the charge carrier

              They're both charge carriers. Equal and opposite charges, to be exact.

              in materials baryons have enormously higher masses and are subject to the strong nuclear force

              No, baryons have (relatively) the same mass regardless of whether they're in a material or not. The strong force energy is certainly responsible for generating much of that mass (via E=mc^2) but its also a very short-range force.

              The strong force holds quarks together within a nucleon, and it a

              • Sorry, I can now see that English isn't your first language but this and your apparent lack of understanding of how current flows through a conductor means that there is little point my continuing to explain since you are misinterpreting what I say and have some serious gaps in your understanding. For example, in English electricity refers to the flow of electric charge or, if 'static electricity', the build up of charge and "charge carrier" refers to the thing which carries the charge when there is a flow

    • There are particles with double negative charge. They are too massive to conveniently carry charge around like an electron, are hard (very expensive) to create, and even more significantly have extremely short lives. Sorry, but this sort of particle physics doesn't have technology applications.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Sorry, but this sort of particle physics doesn't have technology applications.

        Yet.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by GESUS ( 557517 )

      Well, the particle is a sibling to the Proton and Neutron and not fundamental (as far as we know) like the quarks and leptons (electrons are leptons).

      They do not go into detail but I guess this would be a Top Top Charm combo to get the ++ charge with 2 heavy and one light quark.
      Also, there is no statement on the lifetime of the particle. Probably that means that the particle exists for such a short time that it is useless for anything but fundamental science.

      No funny name for it yet? I will name it Skippy!

    • All you'll need is a few million large hadron colliders in your living room to keep producing the unstable particles for your electronics. Unfortunately your house is going to explode before anything useful gets done.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No, that won't work. A double negative makes a positive, naturally.

  • All of I can think of is how redundant that title is.
    I'd suggest: 'New Particle Detected the Large Hadron Collider'
    Unless there is a second(third? How many of these things are there?) LHC I haven't heard of and maybe the Janitors or random people off the street are coming in at night to play?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      'New Particle Detected the Large Hadron Collider'

      I wasn't aware that particles were actively looking for particle accelerators in the Geneva region.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      CERN has 6 particle accelerators, of which the LHC is the biggest.

    • In Soviet Geneva, Particle detects Collider.

  • A little bit more background (Score:5, Informative)

    by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Friday July 07, 2017 @02:30AM (#54761999) Journal

    Quarks come in three "generations". The first, lightest generation has down (mass 4.8 MeV) and up (mass 2.4 MeV). The second generation has strange (95 MeV, a heavier version of down) and charm (1275 MeV, a heavier version of up.) The third generation has bottom (4180 MeV, heaver version of down and strange) and top (172440 MeV, heaver version of up and charm.)

    When they combine into particles, you either get paired quark+anti-quark (e.g. up+anti-down is a pi+ particle) or a triple of same type: quark+quark+quark or anti-quark+anti-quark+anti-quark. (E.g. a proton is up+up+down.)

    This [newsweek.com] article says the new particle has two charm quarks.

    This [wikipedia.org] article says Xi baryons are a class of particles which have a single up or down plus two more massive quarks: either strange, charm or bottom, and Xi baryons have been known since 1952.

    From this I conclude that when they say "light" quarks they mean down, up and strange. (I was very frustrated that they didn't say what they meant by "light" quarks.)

    • up+anti-down

      Where do physicists get the stuff they smoke when they describe the world!

    • From this I conclude that when they say "light" quarks they mean down, up and strange. (I was very frustrated that they didn't say what they meant by "light" quarks.)

      And when they describe a particle as "heavy", they really mean it has extra cheese.

  • FOOLS! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:04AM (#54762071)

    I know you guys are excited about all this cool stuff but it won't be long until they cause a triple heavy quark particle to emerge and it's game over. I know you guys like to have fun with the "universe" but you're effectively about to cause a memory rehash which the system can't handle. To be honest, I blame myself for this. I mean, when I was constructing this sim, I skimped on memory thinking that 640 zettaquads ought to be enough for everybody. ;)

  • > Another unusual property of the particle is that it has two positive charges double that of the proton and it is four times heavier

    .... errrr congrats guys you just discovered Helium.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Altrag ( 195300 )

      I'm suspect you're joking, but in case anyone takes you seriously.. this is quite different from Helium. This is a single heavy nucleon with a +2 charge, whereas Helium is 4 (or occasionally 3) individual light nucleons, two of which hold a +1 charge each (and the remaining 1-2 are neutral of course.)

  • I thought what bound the universe together was midicholrians?

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