physicist might have base a glueball . This is not something you get by rub vinyl radical gum between your fingers . It is a curious fundamental interaction between the carriers of the secure nuclear force , called gluon – hence the name " glueball " .
gluon carry the nuclear force between quarks , a force that is a mass eldritch than the others . It does n’t have only an attractive side like gravity or a positive and disconfirming like electromagnetics . It is an interaction of three unlike charges that physicists in the 1960s call color . It is not really a color , but you will soon get the estimation as to why it is call that .
Let ’s take , for example , the proton : the particle that is found at the center of atomic nuclei . It is made of three quarks , and it does n’t have a nett mission from the strong nuclear effect . So , the charge of the three quark cheese want to offset out . Each quark has a dissimilar color kick : blue , light-green , or flushed . Together , they cancel each other out , like how lights of those colors can create snowy light .
But there are also particles called meson that are made of one quark cheese and one antiquark . They too have no color , so it stands that there must exist an antiblue , antigreen , and antired . Gluons impart the strong atomic force , and in a way , they are a mixture of people of color . They do interact with quark cheese , but they can interact with other gluons as well . And this is where the physics gets interesting – the gluon can form a particle without the need for quark .
The possibility is there , but observe it is another question altogether . Enter the Beijing Spectrometer III ( BES III ) , a particle collider great at take form a specific character of meson : the ( J / psi ) meson , also written J / ψ . It consists of acharm quarkand magical spell antiquark and like all mesons , it is unstable and does n’t last long . And in its decay , there ’s fun poppycock .
We have antecedently report that investigator in the coaction are believed to have founda uncommon combinationof a proton and an antiproton . From canvass over 10 billion J / ψ decaying , researchers are also confident to have found a new particle dubbed X(2370 ) .
The issue in the bracket comprise its hatful in megaelectronvolts over the speed of light squared . You get a muckle of denary gunpoint if you measure a particle ’s mass in grams or ounces . But 2370 was only the first appraisal . The latest work places the actual mass around 2395 MeV / c2and there is a theoretical first moment that a glueball should survive at that mass .
Now , the observations are indeed reproducible with this legendary speck and the result are likely the strongest ever result in favor of the existence of glueballs . But it is not incontrovertible substantiation of a glueball . Another interaction between quarks and antiquarks might make this particle , and there also seems to be a few too many produced by the J / ψ decay . More work will be needed to prove or disprove the glueball nature of this mote .
The study is published in the journalPhysical Review Letters .
[ H / T : Big Think ]
