New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN
The new particle discovered by LHCb, labeled as Tcc+, is a tetraquark-an exotic hadron containing two quarks and two antiquarks. It is the longest-lived exotic matter particle ever discovered, and the first to contain two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks. Today's discovery is of a particularly unique exotic hadron, an exotic exotic hadron if you like. The new particle contains two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Particles containing a charm quark and a charm antiquark have "Hidden charm"-the charm quantum number for the whole particle adds up to zero, just like a positive and a negative electrical charge would do. The particle with two bottom quarks is especially interesting: according to calculations, its mass should be smaller than the sum of the masses of any pair of B mesons. Provided by CERN. Citation: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered retrieved 29 July 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2021-07-exotic-particle-tetraquark.