New Particle Discovered at LHC: the Chi-b(3P)

For the first time since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was opened in 2009, physicists from the UK think they've detected their first new subatomic particle.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Lancaster University analysed data from the ATLAS experiment, where particles of matter are shot at each other at close to the speed of light, in the hopes that interesting new particles will appear in the resulting subatomic carnage.

The data shows a clear indication of a particle called Chi-b(3P), which is pronounced kye-bee-three-pee. It's a forge of the bottom quark (also known as the beauty quark) and its antiquark.

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Quarks are the building blocks of protons and neutrons, which in turn are the building blocks of atoms. Quarks come in a number of flavours like up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. This newly found particle tells us more about the strong nuclear forces that bind the quark and the antiquark.

The lighter partners of the Chi-b(3P) were observed in previous collision experiments around 25 years ago. This is a more excited state of Chi particle.

"Our new measurements are a great way to test theoretical calculations of the forces that act on fundamental particles, and will move us a step closer to understanding how the universe is held together," said Miriam Watson, a research fellow working in the Birmingham group .

Chi-b(3P) is also a boson, which are subatomic particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics. A far more famous boson, the Higgs, is also being hunted for by the LHC. This theoretical field of particles is thought to give subatomic particles their mass as they wade through it. Earlier this month, physicists from the Cern research lab in Geneva announced that they have made significant progress in the hunt for the Higgs boson, but the result does not provide definitive evidence for the long-sought particle.With significantly more data to be gathered next year, "we can look forward to resolving this puzzle in 2012," said Atlas experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti.

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