Quarks Know Their Left From Their Right

sciencehabit writes "How an electron interacts with other matter depends on which way it's spinning as it zips along—to the right like a football thrown by a right-handed quarterback or the left like a pigskin thrown by a lefty. Now, physicists have confirmed that quarks—the particles that join in trios to form the protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei—exhibit the same asymmetry. The result could give physics a new weapon in the grand hunt for new particles and forces. Or they can search for subtle hints of exotic new things beyond their tried-and-true standard model by studying familiar particles in great detail. In the latter approach, the new experiment gives physicists a way to probe for certain kinds of new forces."

Comments

Thank you for explaining left and right to me(!)

[wonkey_monkey]

to the right like a football thrown by a right-handed quarterback or the left like a pigskin thrown by a lefty.

Oh, thanks, I was having such trouble working out what you meant by "left" and "right." And thanks for confusing some of your non-American readers with your references to footballs that you throw (what's that about?), and then referring to them almost immediately afterwards as "pigskins" instead.

Of course it's a terrible analogy anyway, since particle spin is only loosely analogous to every-day spin.

If it was that kind of spin, wouldn't "clockwise" and "anti-clockwise" be better words for it anyway? "Left" and "right" need a decision on which point you're looking at as well as direction.

Does it all come from electrons spiralling left or right in the old particle accelerators?

parity violations

[Iamthecheese]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaon#CP_violation_in_neutral_meson_oscillations

Wikipedia has this to say: Since neutral kaons carry strangeness, they cannot be their own antiparticles. Which, to me, may as well me an incantation to be mumbled over three skulls and a chicken. What real-world thing can be made with this knowledge?