Physicist from UC (Portugal) discovers the lightest subnuclear particle kno

[Ricmacas]

Photo ? DR; "Di?rio de Not?cias" (portuguese newspaper)

Eef van Beveren, theoretical physicist from the University of Coimbra (Portugal), has just announced the identification of a new hadron, named "E(38)", using data from CERN and an accelerator in Bona (Germany).

"There's a great amount of implications with this discovery, not only in hadronic physics (the area of physics that studies strong interactions), but also in high energy physics and cosmology."

The data collected has 13 sigma confidence, largely exceeding the required 5 sigma that indicate the existence of a new particle. Thus, van Beveren can "finally say that the particle exists", also noting that "now, many more experiences are necessary to determine its properties."

In collaboration with George Rupp from IST (Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal) the investigator has developed an arithmetic model which "predicts an infinity of combination resonances with pairs quark-antiquark (mesons)". They have already written and submitted an article to the Physical Review Letters.

According to several press articles, the new particle is 25 times lighter than a proton (up, up, down) and three times lighter than a pion (up-antiup et al.).

The investigator indicates that "the discovery of E(38) constitutes a complete surprise to the scientific community because it's a very special particle and lighter than any other particle with quarks/antiquarks". Our current knowledge tells us that quarks do not exist independently of other quarks, and they're always confined to a group, as van Beveren tells the press "[a hadron] is something closed, where nothing can enter nor exit". Therefore, this new particle is a hadron without quarks. The "Di?rio de Not?cias" (portuguese newspaper) reads: "E(38), as the investigators describe it, is a very small soap bubble which contains no quarks and the external film is made up of gluons."

van Beveren also stated that "it could also be used as a cleaner energy source, given that no residues would be produced. However, we can only expect this in a very distant future because, for now, besides its existence we know almost nothing about it". As per usual, in the search of scientific knowledge, it's impossible to predict the possible pratical use of the discoveries until more details are revealed, though the investigator estimates that "one miligram of this matter would yield one mega watt in a year [MWy]". Some math (24*365) tells us that he meant 8760 MWh, or 3.1536 ? 10¹³ J.

Since his PhD that van Beveren researches the existence of E(38), and "30 years ago I predicted that the mass of this particle would be around 30 MeV, but the improvements in the math model raised this value a bit to 38 MeV." (regarding the units, I'm supposing that he actually meant MeV c^-2)

The discovery was uncovered essentially with the revision of data from several particle accelerators in the world, in which the investigator was able to see what was there - but no one else saw. In a very short range of energy he found 45 thousand events which clearly indicate its presence. "The COMPASS experiment which created hardons at CERN had an "unequivocal signal""[Di?rio de Not?cias - Portuguese newspaper].

Source: http://fqnosecundari...ticula-subatomi

Original Sources:

http://publico.pt/Ci%C3%AAncias/identificada-uma-nova-particula-sub...

http://tek.sapo.pt/noticias/computadores/investigador_de_coimbra_de...

http://www.dn.pt/ini...tent_id=2373090

http://sicnoticias.sapo.pt/vida/2012/03/20/investigador-de-coimbra-...

http://www.cienciaho...id=53547&op=all

Any corrections are appreciated.

EDIT: PRL Articles http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1739 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.1863

[n_K]

Awesome discovery ;o

Shame education is so out of touch with recent scientific discoveries.

Maybe I'm not getting something, E (joules) = C (charge) V (volts), i.e. 30MeV = 30x1.6x10^-19=joules? mass? errr...

[Ricmacas]

Awesome discovery ;o

Shame education is so out of touch with recent scientific discoveries.

Maybe I'm not getting something, E (joules) = C (charge) V (volts), i.e. 30MeV = 30x1.6x10^-19=joules? mass? errr...

Explaining this is actually easy because the E = m*c^2 equation is wildly known. I assume he meant 38 MeV c^-2 because, according to the previous formula, m= E / c^2. It's just another unit for mass, expressed in terms of energy per speed of light in vacuum squared.

The wikipedia article for the Electron rest mass ( https://en.wikipedia...ctron_rest_mass ) has the same mass (electron rest mass) expressed in various units.

[n_K]

Ahha yes, thank you.

[nunojferreira]

Regarding the units, it is a common practice in particle physics to use natural units: h/(2*pi=1) and c=1. That simplifies the calculations because momentum, mass and energy are then all expressed in eV.

[44MLX]

Great discovery. I wonder what else man kind will discover within 5 years...

[Salutary7]

This has to be some kind of weird joke.