The LHC has discovered two new subatomic particles known as Xi_b’– (ZAI-bee-minus )and Xi_b*( ZAI-bee-star-minus). These particles where predicted to have existed but never have until now, as they were observed by CERN’s LCH team.
These particles already have 6 times the mass of a proton and according to CERN this discovery can point us towards a new class of physics which is beyond what we know.
Each of these particles consist of a down quark and a strange quark and a beauty/bottom quark, but here the rotations of the strange quarks are different which result in a huge difference in mass, shown in their energy potential of 5.935 GeV vs. 5.955 GeV.
These particles join the ever growing list of observed Xi baryons and even longer list of baryons which consist of any partial made up from three quarks. They also fall under the list of hadrons which consist of one quark and one antiquark.
While there are only 17 known fundamental particles in the standard model, they can be combined with each other to form hundreds of other composite particles. By smashing these atoms together we have only glimpsed what can be discovered. Below is a picture of the large hadron collider.
These two particles where discovered by LHC experiment using a hyper sensitive particle detectors. The name large hadron collider is specifically tuned to detect hadrons that contain what’s known as a bottom quark, having discovered what’s known as exotic hadrons (made from 4 quarks instead of 3).
The significance of this discovery is still being investigated, as to overthrow the standard model would require some significant and solid discovery
Speaking about the discovery, the LHCb’s Patrick Koppenburg said, “If we want to find new physics beyond the Standard Model, we need first to have a sharp picture. Such high precision studies will help us to differentiate between Standard Model effects and anything new or unexpected in the future.”