Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
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Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#2More technical details here: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/11/lhcb-observes-...
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#3In 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-4.0. I wonder how PRL feels about this.
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#4In 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…
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?
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#5I 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.
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#6Here's the paper in question: http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.4849
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#7In 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…
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 hinted at by the actual mass values among other things.
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#8I 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.
Yes-ish. There are a few obscure theories that explain dark matter as stable, super-symmetric, super-heavy, non-interacting particles of this sort. But such particles are not predicted by the standard model.
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#9In 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…
Yeah, it might be better to say 'catalogued' than 'discovered,' which always makes me hope for something unexpected, even though I know that's highly unlikely.
Re: Two new subatomic particles discovered at CERN
#10Why does nobody include the particle name in the heading? Supersymmetry?!? Click. Nope, some pseudo particle or a bunch of quarks.