A team of researchers working with the Hadron Collider have found two new subatomic particles, previously predicted but never before discovered.
These particles are both types of baryon particles. A baryon is a type of subatomic particle that is made of three quarks held together by a strong force.
Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, named the newly-discovered particles Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-.
"Nature was kind and gave us two particles for the price of one," said Matthew Charles, one of the researchers working with the Large Hadron Collider.
The existence of these two particles was predicted by the quark model, a classification scheme for hadron particles. In 2012, scientists at CERN discovered a related particle named Xi_b*0 during the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. That particle, found in 2012, seemed consistent with the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is the particle which scientists believe holds together all matter.
Each of the two newly-discovered particles were made of three different kinds of quarks: one beauty quark, one strange quark, and one down quark.
Charles said that the team discovered the Xi_b'- particle because its mass was a little heavier than the Xi_b*- particle. If Xi_b'- particle had been just a little bit lighter, the scientists would have missed it.
These particles are heavier because they "spin" in opposite directions, according to CERN team member Steven Blusk.
"This is a very exciting result. Thanks to LHCb's excellent hadron identification, which is unique among the LHC experiments, we were able to separate a very clean and strong signal from the background. It demonstrates once again the sensitivity and how precise the LHCb detector is," said Blusk.
Researchers at the LHC said that the team would have to perform more high precision tests of the standard quark model to learn more about physics.
This discovery was based on data collected in 2012. The LHC is currently not operating. The team at CERN has shut down the LHC to refit it with stronger beams and allow it to operate at a higher energy. The team at CERN plans to re-open the LHC in 2015. The new designs will give the LHC 60 percent more power than it had before.
