New Scientist: Corrected: 5/6/2010: The tetraquark, a massive particle made up of four quarks, may have been seen at KEK particle accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan.Thirty years ago, tetraquarks were proposed as a solution to the equations of quantum chromodynamics. QCD is a theory developed to describe how quarks combine to make two-quark mesons, such as pions and kaons, and three-quark baryons like protons or neutrons.Possible sightings of tetraquarks have occurred before at KEK, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Stanford, California, and D-Zero at the Fermilab accelerator in Illinois. It is extremely rare to observe these particles.Ahmed Ali and colleagues at German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, Germany, found a 2008 data anomaly in KEK’s BELLE experiment, in which the end result from colliding electrons and positrons decayed at too rapid a rate for the suspected particle created. If this particle was a tetraquark, however, then the decay rate would match the experimental results. Related linkTetraquark interpretation of the BELLE data on the anomalous Î¥(1 S) Ï+Ï- and Î¥(2 S) Ï+Ï- production near the Î¥(5 S) resonance
Despite the tumultuous history of the near-Earth object’s parent body, water may have been preserved in the asteroid for about a billion years.
October 08, 2025 08:50 PM
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Physics Today - The Week in Physics
The Week in Physics" is likely a reference to the regular updates or summaries of new physics research, such as those found in publications like Physics Today from AIP Publishing or on news aggregators like Phys.org.