Scientists can add another elementary particle to their books thanks to physicists at Lancaster University who have revealed the latest addition to the family to be an exotic subatomic tetraquark particle. The finding, which was made during the DZero international collaboration at a United States government laboratory that specializes in high-energy particle physics, will push our understanding of the basic interactions observed in the field.
"It is exciting to discover a new and unusual particle that will help us understand the strong interaction - one of the four known fundamental interactions in physics," Iain Bertram, who participated in the study, said in a press release.
DZero is one of the two experiments being conducted at Fermilab's Tevatron collider. Despite its retirement in 2011, scientists continue to analyze billions of data that was recorded from the collider's collisions.
The new tetraquark discovery started with hints of its existence back in July 2015 - the particle was named X(5568) due to its mass of 5568 megaelectronvolts. Bertram participated in the development of the model now used to simulate the X(5568).
Quarks, which are point-like elementary particles, are made up of six types, or "flavors": up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top, and each flavor has an antimatter counterpart. Although all other known tetraquarks contain at least two of the same flavor, X(5568) has four: up, down, strange and bottom.
The findings are available on pre-print website arXiv.
