11–20 of 37 posts
Why does nobody include the particle name in the heading? Supersymmetry?!? Click. Nope, some pseudo particle or a bunch of quarks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this what I've heard called "particle zoo" research, where they're just using higher and higher energies to pile up more and more improbable bundles of fundamental stuff?
Yes. It's somewhat shameful that we physicists still call these constructs 'particles' as to the lay person this still implies some sort of fundamental nature. They are actually predicted constructs of still smaller particles that only appear momentarily at sufficiently high energy. That said, it is important, interesting research because if there are important deviations from the standard model, it is likely to be h…
Are they any less particle-like than an electron? Than a proton?
Even though a proton isn't fundamental, it's still considered a particle.
In case people are wondering about the impact of this, it's not very interesting (to non particle physcists) unless something unexpected about these particles is found later, as these particles were predicted by the Standard Model. The exact mass splittings, of course, are useful to validate (and further improve) theoretical models of QCD. What I find more interesting is that LHCb is licensing their eprint as CC-BY-4…
Of course the PRL version will not be CC-BY and citations that reference it will likely not find the CC-BY version. I wonder if it will matter in any material way to PRL - no more so at least than the situation where papers are available direct from a repository on an author's personal webpage. The pre-print already being on Arxiv.org probably makes far more impact than the use of a CC license?
Why does nobody include the particle name in the heading? Supersymmetry?!? Click. Nope, some pseudo particle or a bunch of quarks.
Though the OP does say "The discovery of the particles, known as Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-, were announced by CERN [...]"
𝛯′⁻ works in unicode, but I can't get the subscript b nor superscript asterisk in there (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_subscripts_and_superscr...).
Why does nobody include the particle name in the heading? Supersymmetry?!? Click. Nope, some pseudo particle or a bunch of quarks.
I'll go a bit further. Even the article body didn't say much. They're bosons? Great. A bit more detail? Masses? Names? Anything? Nope.
There are three "generations" of quarks, each one heavier than the last but otherwise identical in properties. These are charm and strange followed by top and bottom. These new particles are a mix of generations: bds (bottom, down, strange). They are predicted by the Standard Model, but their detailed properties (particularly their branching ratios to various decays into other particles) will be slightly different in theories of "physics beyond the Standard Model", so by looking at them in detail, including a precision measurement of their masses, it may be possible to kill off some alternative theories.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll go a bit further. Even the article body didn't say much. They're bosons? Great. A bit more detail? Masses? Names? Anything? Nope.
According to the preprint linked above they are hybrid equivalents of the proton or neutron. Protons and neutrons are made of up and down quarks. Protons are uud, neutrons are ddu. (d have charge -1/3, u +2/3, so neutrons have no net charge, protons +1). There are three "generations" of quarks, each one heavier than the last but otherwise identical in properties. These are charm and strange followed by top and bottom…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. It's somewhat shameful that we physicists still call these constructs 'particles' as to the lay person this still implies some sort of fundamental nature. They are actually predicted constructs of still smaller particles that only appear momentarily at sufficiently high energy. That said, it is important, interesting research because if there are important deviations from the standard model, it is likely to be h…
> It's somewhat shameful that we physicists still call these constructs 'particles' Are they any less particle-like than an electron? Than a proton? Even though a proton isn't fundamental, it's still considered a particle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. It's somewhat shameful that we physicists still call these constructs 'particles' as to the lay person this still implies some sort of fundamental nature. They are actually predicted constructs of still smaller particles that only appear momentarily at sufficiently high energy. That said, it is important, interesting research because if there are important deviations from the standard model, it is likely to be h…
> It's somewhat shameful that we physicists still call these constructs 'particles' Are they any less particle-like than an electron? Than a proton? Even though a proton isn't fundamental, it's still considered a particle.
I suppose this is the particle physics equivalent of 'discovering' heavier and heavier elements in the periodic table -- good evidence towards existing theory, but effectively these are artificial constructions that exist only briefly and never (?) outside lab conditions.
Why does nobody include the particle name in the heading? Supersymmetry?!? Click. Nope, some pseudo particle or a bunch of quarks.