Physicists Discover 'Doubly Strange' Particle

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2008) — Physicists of the DZero experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a new particle made of three quarks, the Omega-sub-b (Ωb).

The particle contains two strange quarks and a bottom quark (s-s-b). It is an exotic relative of the much more common proton and weighs about six times the proton mass.

The discovery of the doubly strange particle brings scientists a step closer to understanding exactly how quarks form matter and to completing the "periodic table of baryons." Baryons (derived from the Greek word "barys," meaning "heavy") are particles that contain three quarks, the basic building blocks of matter. The proton comprises two up quarks and a down quark (u-u-d).

Combing through almost 100 trillion collision events produced by the Tevatron particle collider at Fermilab, the DZero collaboration found 18 incidents in which the particles emerging from a proton-antiproton collision revealed the distinctive signature of the Omega-sub-b. Once produced, the Omega-sub-b travels about a millimeter before it disintegrates into lighter particles. Its decay, mediated by the weak force, occurs in about a trillionth of a second.

more:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903172201.htm

Once produced, the decay of the Omega-sub-b (Ωb) proceeds like fireworks. The particle travels about a millimeter before it disintegrates into two intermediate particles called J/Psi (J/ψ ) and Omega-minus (Ω- ). The J/Psi then promptly decays into a pair of muons. The Omega-minus baryon, on the other hand, can travel several centimeters before decaying into yet another unstable particle called a Lambda (Λ ) baryon along with a long-lived particle called kaon (K). The Lambda baryon, which has no electric charge, also can travel several centimeters prior to decaying into a proton (p) and a pion (π ). (Credit: DZero collaboration)

[ensho]

1. quarks are so interesting - thanks for article

nt

[snappyturtle]

2. What does all this mean? How could this discovery afftect us? nt

[Canuckistanian]

7. Millimeter-high fireworks displays

It probably won't sell.

[snappyturtle]

14. Oh. interesting. n/t

[Maraya1969]

3. Can I make one in my Crock Pot?

:P

[Straight Shooter]

5. No, that would require a Quark Pot.

:hi:

[unblock]

6. sure, but you have to stir EXTREMELY vigorously.

[central scrutinizer]

8. First you need a grant - follow these steps

<>

[no limit]

4. Accelerators are awesome, can't wait for the hadron collider. But I'm not smart enough to understand

any of this :P.

[Beam Me Up]

9. I wonder if even the people doing this "understand".

Hypotheses, sure, but they are observing these phenomena under very special conditions. Do these 'things' even exist outside of these special conditions?

[no limit]

10. I'm too dumb to even attempt at answering that

I'll let the people that do this for a living handle it. :)

[Duppers]

11. indeed they do exist "outside of these special conditions"

the experiment allowed them to observe, that's all.

[Indenturedebtor]

12. Yes they do, and it's important to see all of the configurations

They're trying to figure out how the fundamental basic nature of matter does it's thing after all.

[tridim]

13. The point is that they likely existed as building blocks shortly after the big bang.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

15. Special circumstances? WHAT???!

C'mon..............

Black holes,

Quazars,

Novas,

Supernovas,

ad infinitum...

are CONTINUOUS in the Universe.....

These are not 'Special circumstances'... it's only a special OBSERVATION by humankind of EVENTS that occur every single moment in the life of the universe.

THINK OUTSIDE THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. (As limited as that is..........)