4 ms·
The title is slightly misleading, also in usual physicist speak right. The kind of particle here are made up of four quarks, and as far as I know were somewhat
by yk 10y ago
The title is slightly misleading, also in usual physicist speak right. The kind of particle here are made up of four quarks, and as far as I know were somewhat expected. The underlying theory, QCD, predicts that free particles (hadrons)^1 are bound states of quarks, and in this case bound states of two quarks and two anti-quarks. (Wether we should call everything we see in a collider a particle is a question, which I happily leave for philosophers to answer.)
^1 A hadron is is made of quarks and gluons, which can only exist as bound states, such that they have no net strong charge. Contrast this with a lepton like the electron, that has no strong charge and can consequently exist as a free particle.
- jessriedel 10y ago> The underlying theory, QCD, predicts that free particles (hadrons)^1 are bound states of quarks, and in this case bound states of two quarks and two anti-quarks. Even though we presume to know the dynamical equations of QCD exactly, I am pretty sure it was never shown rigorously that tetraquarks are possible under those equations.