New 'Mystery Meson' Sub-Atomic Particle Discovered

securitas writes "The BBC reports that scientists in Japan have discovered a new sub-atomic particle that defies current theories of matter and energy. The 'mystery meson' X(3872) was revealed while studying beauty quarks at the KEK High Energy Accelerator Research Organization Tsukuba meson factory. 'It weighs about the same as a single atom of helium and exists for only about one billionth of a trillionth of a second before it decays into other longer-lived, more familiar particles.' Scientists say the lifespan 'is nearly an eternity for a sub-atomic particle this heavy' and may require a change in current theory. Possible explanations for this include the particle being comprised of two quarks and two antiquarks, instead of the usual one-one pairing. More explanation and illustrations at KEK."

Comments

String Theory

[attobyte]

So what does this mean for the String Theory?

knot of string?

[ilikecaffeine]

Could this be explained by string theory?
Maybe the individual particles/strings were close enough together to cause constructive intereference? They appeared as one larger particle because it essentially was. However, the system was unstable, and "decayed" into the other particles almost instantly. Really, they were different particles all along.

That's my completely amateur wild guess. Anyone who actually knows what they're talking about care to comment?

Re:The Standard Model

[darkstar949]

According to the articals the particle doesn't violate the Standard Model, however, the current Standard Model will need a change to allow for this particle. Of course it should be noted that the Standard Model is a patch-work affair based on observation with out much understanding of how everything fits together and as such will still don't know how everything works.

Aggregation creates stabilization?

[G4from128k]

I'm not surprised that unsual particles like this are being discovered. Perhaps the long halflife of this particle suggests that aggregation can lead to stablization. In the same way that neutrons are stabilized by protons on the nuclei of everyday matter, I'd bet that mesons can be stabilized either by other mesons or baryons.

Perhaps this won't overturn pre-existing models for elementary particles, but lead to extensions of theories on how aggregates of these particles behave.

How long?

[Zathrus]

exists for only about one billionth of a trillionth of a second

So, exactly how long is that? In the US, that would be 10e-21 seconds. But this is being reported by the BBC, and most of the English speaking world outside of the US doesn't consider 1 billion = 1000 million (instead it's 1 million million). So is it 10e-21 seconds or 10e-36 seconds (if I did my math right, which I probably didn't)? That's a rather large difference, and I couldn't find a definitive reference in any of the linked articles or PhysicsWeb.

That said, how do you detect particles that exist for this short a period of time anyway?

Re:How long?

[kiwimate]

By common agreement, the American convention of a billion = 1,000,000,000 is used in professional contexts. More information from here:

How many is a billion?

If you are American, it is undoubtedly 1,000,000,000. This amount is known to traditionally minded British people as `a thousand million', and by some more adventurous ones as a 'milliard', though this word has not made as much headway in English as in some other European languages. A trillion is then 1,000,000,000,000, and so on.

If you are British, on the other hand, a billion may be 1,000,000,000,000 (a million million), following the older convention.

If you are neither British nor American, you can take your pick! (Both systems were invented by the French, but are called 'British' and 'American' for convenience.)

Once the business world and the financial press found themselves discussing `thousand millions' so much, the 'American' system simply became more convenient, despite a certain lack of logical tidiness. (A 'British' trillion is the third power of a million, while the 'American' one is the fourth power of a thousand, and the 'American' system continues out of sync with the arithmetic). It also makes the profits sound bigger! The 'American' system is now standard use in British government publications, and is becoming the norm in many other languages.

For what it's worth, I grew up in New Zealand, and I have always considered a billion to be a million million (the British system), but have known from my physics and maths classes to use a thousand million in these contexts. So, how's that? Clear as mud?

Re:Quantized time

[Jon Abbott]

Even though you've found an answer, you may still want to read about "Planck time", which is the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning (under our current understanding of Physics, that is).

Re:US Research

[Alomex]

Overall, money invested in science has historically paid off at better than 10-1.

True in general, but generally false for big science. As Luis Alvarez (a famous experimentalist) pointed out large amounts of research money tend to lead to wasteful experimental science. Michelson-Morley done today would have been along the lines of

1. Send satellite to orbit
2. Satellite doesn't work, send repair crew
3. Send second satellite to orbit moving in reverse direction
4. Send super duper high power laser beam from satellite A to satellite B
5. Measure speed difference using built in atomic clocks
6. Conclude that speed of light is independent of "ether"

Total bill: a few billion dollars.

Total cost of Michelson-Morley as originally done: a few thousand dollars.

(insert "priceless" joke here)

Re:The Standard Model

[WatertonMan]

"Violating" the standard model doesn't mean as much as it might at first glance. The standard model is largely a kludge to get things to fit together. It really is purely fitting data to experiment. It doesn't have an elegant underlying math from which everything makes sense. (Which isn't to say it doesn't make predictions)

The standard model has been looked down upon for a long time, even though it is the best we have. I'd say that superstrings or loop theories might give us the long sought for GUT. However they have a very long way to go still, even if they have made more progress than I think most thought back in the 80's.

Anyway, this is very exciting. Science often makes the most progress in the years following unexpected experimental results. Look at the speed of light being an ultimate constant...

Re:I always loved particle physics

[boomka]

we don't study things that have been smashed into pieces.
Actually, in an accelerator, when electrons or protons collide,
we _create_ many different particles and study them.

We don't study the electrons or the protons any more - they are not as interesting as the particles that can be produced by annihilating them.

And to be even more precise, the particles we study are not
even pieces of the original particles, they simply emerge out
of the free energy released in the collision, and most often have nothing whatsoever to do with the original particles.