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How Pentaquarks May Lead To the Discovery of New Fundamental Physics

Posted by samzenpus on from the that-looks-new dept.

StartsWithABang writes: Over 100 years ago, Rutherford's gold foil experiment discovered the atomic nucleus. At higher energies, we can split that nucleus apart into protons and neutrons, and at still higher ones, into individual quarks and gluons. But these quarks and gluons can combine in amazing ways: not just into mesons and baryons, but into exotic states like tetraquarks, pentaquarks and even glueballs. As the LHC brings these states from theory to reality, here's what we're poised to learn, and probe, by pushing the limits of quantum chromodynamics.

3 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Actually, you CAN'T do that by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At higher energies, we can split that nucleus apart into protons and neutrons, and at still higher ones, into individual quarks

    In one sense that seems to be something you really can't do. The force between free quarks increases with distance to about 10,000N, then remains constant (no, I have no idea how this makes any sense, but it's what I read). Any force sufficient to tear two quarks apart is sufficient to generate new quarks which then bind with the "free" quarks. So you never see quarks by themselves.

    IANAP, though. Does the above really mean that if you had two free quarks separated by a kilometre or a light year, that there would still be that constant 10,000N force between them?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Actually, you CAN'T do that by Carewolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      At higher energies, we can split that nucleus apart into protons and neutrons, and at still higher ones, into individual quarks

      In one sense that seems to be something you really can't do. The force between free quarks increases with distance to about 10,000N, then remains constant (no, I have no idea how this makes any sense, but it's what I read). Any force sufficient to tear two quarks apart is sufficient to generate new quarks which then bind with the "free" quarks. So you never see quarks by themselves.

      IANAP, though. Does the above really mean that if you had two free quarks separated by a kilometre or a light year, that there would still be that constant 10,000N force between them?

      Plus that we are not even sure quarks are individual things. They might just be eigenvalues of particle properties, nice to calculate on, but not necessarily anything real in themselves.

    2. Re:Actually, you CAN'T do that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The top quark can exist without hadronizing, so the properties of "naked" quarks can be studied. Not sure if just an eigenvector can explain that.