CERN Quark Experiments: Latest Findings & Discoveries

In summary, recent experiments at CERN have found evidence for the existence of a fourth quark flavor.
  • #1
StephvsEinst
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Hi! Does anyone know the most fundamental experiments that CERN did involving the discover of anything related to quarks? What is the most recent and important discover of CERN about quarks (heavy quarks)?

Thank you.
 
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  • #2
Nearly all CERN high-energy physics experiments after ~1970 relied on the concept of quarks and the results cannot be understood without.
The heavy quarks were all discovered at other sites, but CERN contributed to their study.

It is hard to rank discoveries by their importance and the relationship to quarks.
 
  • #3
mfb said:
Nearly all CERN high-energy physics experiments after ~1970 relied on the concept of quarks and the results cannot be understood without.
The heavy quarks were all discovered at other sites, but CERN contributed to their study.

It is hard to rank discoveries by their importance and the relationship to quarks.

Ok, I guess my question was wrongly formulated. Do you know/have you read some interesting papers about experiments with quarks written by someone from CERN?
 
  • #4
I think the question is still too broad. All LHC experiments analyze proton-proton collisions, which involve quarks. The same applies to the old SPS experiments. It is like asking for astronomy observations using telescopes: sure there are some that did not use telescopes, but those are the exception.
LHCb is a whole experiment dedicated to studies of hadrons with heavy quarks. ALICE is specialized on quark/gluon plasmas.

All ATLAS papers (minus a few papers with "M. Atlas" as author)
All CMS papers
All LHCb papers
ALICE papers
 
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  • #5
If there's one single experiment in history of science related to quarks, the first thing coming to my mind is the socalled "November revolution", where the charm quark was discovered, or more precisely put, charmonium has been found, the particle which we call ##J/\psi## since then. However, it was not discovered at CERN but in parallel at the same time in 1974 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). It was one of the triumphes of theory, having predicted the existence of a fourth quark flavor in order to explain the suppression of flavor-chaning neutral currents (Bjorken, Glashow 1964 and Glashow, Iliopoulus, Maiani 1970; nowadays known as the GIM mechanism and one of the cornerstones of the electroweak sector of the Standard Model, Quantum Flavor Dynamics).

Somwhat later, a 3rd generation of quarks has been predicted in order to explain CP violation (Kobayashi, Maskawa 1973). The bottom quark was discovered in 1977 at Fermilab, and the top quark, the hitherto last guy in the club, also at Fermilab in 1995.

CERN is most famous for the discovery of the gauge bosons of the weak interaction, the W- and Z0 bosons in 1983 and, of course, more recently the discovery of the Higgs boson (2012).
 
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  • #6
StephvsEinst said:
Ok, I guess my question was wrongly formulated. Do you know/have you read some interesting papers about experiments with quarks written by someone from CERN?

About quarks? I think the last I read was the confirmation of the [itex]Z(4430)[/itex] candidate tetraquark state ([itex]c\bar{c} d \bar{u}[/itex]) with [itex] \sim 14 \sigma [/itex]. However the particle was observed in Belle around 7 years prior to CERN's discovery/confirmation.
Also I haven't been updated whether it's really an exotic tetraquark state or any other kind of resonance/bound state.
 
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  • #7
Really enjoyed your answers.
Thank you.
 

1. What is CERN and what are its quark experiments?

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is a scientific organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Its quark experiments involve studying the fundamental particles that make up matter and the forces that govern their interactions.

2. What are the latest findings from CERN's quark experiments?

One of the latest findings is the discovery of a new type of tetraquark particle called X(2900). This particle is made up of four quarks (two charm quarks and two anti-charm quarks) and has a mass of 2.9 GeV.

3. How do the quark experiments at CERN contribute to our understanding of the universe?

CERN's quark experiments help scientists understand the fundamental building blocks of matter and the forces that govern their interactions. This knowledge can then be applied to further our understanding of the universe and its origins.

4. What tools and technologies are used in CERN's quark experiments?

CERN's quark experiments use powerful particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), to accelerate particles to near the speed of light. These particles are then collided and the resulting data is collected and analyzed using advanced detectors and computing systems.

5. What potential applications can come from the discoveries made through CERN's quark experiments?

The discoveries made through CERN's quark experiments can have a wide range of potential applications, such as advancements in medical imaging, energy production, and technology. They can also lead to a better understanding of the universe and its laws, which can have profound implications for our society.

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