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Measurements from the LHCb collaboration are advancing scientific understanding of how individual quarks come together to form observable matter. Studies at the Large Hadron Collider have shown that
Measurements from the LHCb collaboration are advancing scientific understanding of how individual quarks come together to form observable matter.
Studies at the Large Hadron Collider have shown that quarks, the main constituents of visible matter, form complex particles depending on environmental conditions. This discovery challenges the previously held belief that baryon production from quarks is uniform and points to the need for revised theoretical models to explain the formation of matter with variable densities.
Quarks are the fundamental particles that make up the visible matter in the universe. The most intriguing and mysterious feature of quarks is that they never occur alone. Instead, they can only be observed within complex particles such as protons.
Nuclear physicists use giant particle accelerators to produce different types of quarks and study how they evolve into observable particles. Groups of three quarks form complex particles called baryons (like protons and neutrons), and pairs of quarks form mesons. New measurements from the Large Hadron Collider Beauty (LHCb) experiment contradict previous expectations by showing surprising differences in the rate of baryon formation.
The atomic nuclei that make up all visible matter are made up of baryons (specifically protons and neutrons), which scientists believe formed in the early universe. Baryons inside nuclei are stable particles that do not undergo radioactive decay. However, all mesons are unstable and quickly decay into lighter particles that cannot form atoms.
Therefore, the existence of stable baryons and unstable mesons makes possible the existence of atoms and the universe as we know it. The LHCb experiment showed that the rate at which quarks decay into baryons and mesons depends strongly on the density of the medium. This discovery helps explain the creation of the first stable particles in the early universe.
The fact that quarks must be confined is a defining feature of the strong interaction, as described in the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). QCD calculations can predict the total number of heavy bottom quarks produced by particle collisions, but they cannot describe the fraction that end up as baryons rather than mesons. Typically, researchers adjust models based on data from previous experiments on electron-positron collisions, assuming that the baryon formation rate is universal.
A key difference between this new work and previous experiments is that collisions of protons and/or nuclei in the Large Hadron Collider create an environment with a much higher density of quarks.
In this study, nuclear physicists at the LHCb experiment found that the number of baryons containing b-quarks depends on the environment after the collision and increases with higher particle density. This suggests that scientists’ assumption of the universality of baryon formation is incorrect and that the interactions between the resulting quarks as they evolve into visible matter affect how many baryons are produced.
These new results suggest that additional theoretical mechanisms are needed to create baryons in dense collision systems; these mechanisms may be particularly important in the early universe when the first protons were formed.
Source: Port Altele
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