After 50 Years, Physicists May Have Finally Found a Particle Made of Pure Force (sciencealert.com) 40
Gluons are the quantum 'Gorilla Glue' involved in binding quarks together, ScienceAlert reminds us. But for nearly 50 years, physicists have hunted for "glueballs", exotic particles predicted by this theory of the strong interaction — the only type of particle in nature composed entirely of force mediators:
Now, a collaboration working at a collider in Beijing says it has the clearest evidence yet that a known particle called X(2370) is dominated by one of these elusive states... Physicists sifted through the wreckage of high-energy particle collisions to find strong evidence of this glueball, made predominantly of gluons — massless force carriers of the strong interaction between quarks... The new evidence for this exotic, unstable glueball's ephemeral existence comes from a recent preprint on arXiv, presented at the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil... This collaboration uses the Beijing Electron Positron Collider II, a particle accelerator and collider that smashes electrons into their antimatter counterparts, called positrons, to probe perplexing particle physics.
The resultant glueball is an "unprecedented form of matter," says Jin Shan, a particle physicist at Nanjing University and one of the research team's leaders. "It not only enables the theory describing strong interactions to pass its most rigorous test, but also vastly expands the boundaries of our understanding of the physical world," he told Fan Chen at South China Morning Post... Previously, in a study published in the journal Physical Review Letters in 2024, the researchers analyzed 10 billion meson decay events. They measured the X(2370) particle's mass and spin parity — a property that dictates its interactions and almost-instantaneous decay — for the first time, finding complete agreement between their experimental values and predictions. Now, they've identified its additional decay modes and determined its flavor-singlet nature, "the most important characteristic of a glueball...."
The authors describe their work as the clearest experimental result to emerge from nearly 50 years of glueball searches, supporting the long-standing theoretical prediction that gluons can bind together into a new form of matter.
The discovery ""highlights advances in technology and analytical techniques that have recently revealed another decades-in-the-making physics mystery," the article points out.
"More experiments are needed to further confirm and constrain the prototypes of the highly esoteric glueball; in other words, more particle smashing."
Now, a collaboration working at a collider in Beijing says it has the clearest evidence yet that a known particle called X(2370) is dominated by one of these elusive states... Physicists sifted through the wreckage of high-energy particle collisions to find strong evidence of this glueball, made predominantly of gluons — massless force carriers of the strong interaction between quarks... The new evidence for this exotic, unstable glueball's ephemeral existence comes from a recent preprint on arXiv, presented at the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil... This collaboration uses the Beijing Electron Positron Collider II, a particle accelerator and collider that smashes electrons into their antimatter counterparts, called positrons, to probe perplexing particle physics.
The resultant glueball is an "unprecedented form of matter," says Jin Shan, a particle physicist at Nanjing University and one of the research team's leaders. "It not only enables the theory describing strong interactions to pass its most rigorous test, but also vastly expands the boundaries of our understanding of the physical world," he told Fan Chen at South China Morning Post... Previously, in a study published in the journal Physical Review Letters in 2024, the researchers analyzed 10 billion meson decay events. They measured the X(2370) particle's mass and spin parity — a property that dictates its interactions and almost-instantaneous decay — for the first time, finding complete agreement between their experimental values and predictions. Now, they've identified its additional decay modes and determined its flavor-singlet nature, "the most important characteristic of a glueball...."
The authors describe their work as the clearest experimental result to emerge from nearly 50 years of glueball searches, supporting the long-standing theoretical prediction that gluons can bind together into a new form of matter.
The discovery ""highlights advances in technology and analytical techniques that have recently revealed another decades-in-the-making physics mystery," the article points out.
"More experiments are needed to further confirm and constrain the prototypes of the highly esoteric glueball; in other words, more particle smashing."
Extra! Extra! (Score:5, Funny)
Action-at-a-distance! Get your action-at-a-distance here or there! Packaged in a wave! No field of enquiry, is too small.
You, sir, do you want to read the story? Only two cents!
Extra! Extra!
May the force be with you (Score:1)
They're called Midi-chlorians. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, dark matter and dark energy are about 95% of the cosmos, so apparently so.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Well, coffee is the glue that holds my life together.
For me it is the solvent that tears it apart.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Came here for this.
Re: (Score:2)
I only came because it'd been a long time.
Re: They're called Midi-chlorians. (Score:2)
What? so you plug your keyboard into it?
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot Reruns (Score:5, Informative)
https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Nobody liked my glueballs/blueballs joke then, so at least that won't be repeated.
Re: (Score:2)
After 50 Years Slashdotter May Have Finally Found An Article Made Of Pure Dupe
Puttin' the Phizz in Physics. (Score:2)
Gluons are the quantum 'Gorilla Glue' involved in binding quarks together..
A) Statement by a highly esteemed physicist.
B) Streamer intro from a 15-year old TikTok influencer/rapper.
My ése from 'querque was tripping hard before I told him all the éses aren't the SA they're talking horribly about online. I almost had to refer him to the National Unalive Hotline.
Haha "particles" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The mid range of the standard distribution thinks particles are real physical objects.
One end of the curve thinks that sounds like nonsense - the other end knows they're mathematical abstractions with no intent to claim a physical description.
Some people are working on a physical model (bounded surface area / Pauli exclusion) but in the odd world of Mathematical Physics the physicists Interested in the physical are sneered at.
It's reminiscent of "that bitch is so ugly" heard from the mids about the pretties
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Physics should move on from this outdated concept [of particles].
Why? It's still incredibly useful, and is likely to continue to be so for some time to come.
Newtonian Gravitation became "outdated" with the arrival of Einstein's General Relativity, but physicists still use Newtonian Gravitation in regimes where it works to within the accuracy required in a problem.
If a theory works, and it's easy to use, then usually there's no reason not to.
Re: (Score:2)
Every model is wrong, but some are more useful than others.
Re: (Score:2)
Physics should move on from this outdated concept [of particles].
Why? It's still incredibly useful, and is likely to continue to be so for some time to come.
For the same reason we don't use Newtonian Gravitation at the cutting edge.
Clearly Physics is trying to discover and develop new things. Isn't it obvious?
Well, no, it isn't obvious. Many branches of physics are not attempting to uncover new fundamental theories of the universe. Instead, they apply existing well-known physical theories to improve understanding of complex system. Climate science and plasma physics are just two examples. There are many more.
Newtonian Gravitation became "outdated" with the arrival of Einstein's General Relativity, but physicists still use Newtonian Gravitation in regimes where it works to within the accuracy required in a problem.
People are clearly talking about probing the regimes where it may not work and isn't likely to be accurate enough...
Two responses to this: first, if you are probing the regimes where Newtonian Gravitation may not work, then obviously you're not going to use Newtonian Gravitation, except as a comparison to new results to o
Re: (Score:2)
Why? What would you call the minimum constituent parts of something? Atom (from Greek "indivisible") is taken. Part-icle (from Latin "piece" and "small") is pretty good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, solipsism. Motivating humanity since... never.
I never thought I'd see a Resonance Cascade, let a (Score:2)
I never thought I'd see a Resonance Cascade, let alone create one
Luke, can you feel the force. (Score:2)
Name Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
After 50 Years Chuck Norris May Have Finally Found The Physicists
I don't use gluons (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
I cover my nipples with pasties.
Cornish or vegetarian?
Finally? (Score:2)
I think your headline is flawed. Photon are also massless made of pure "force"
Re: (Score:2)
I think your headline is flawed. Photon are also massless made of pure "force"
Photons are the conveyors of the electromagnetic force. They are not themselves the force. Gluons are the analogous conveyors of the strong force.
TFA/TFS speaks of a particle that is made of gluons. For your analogy to work here, you'd need to create a particle made of photons.
Re: (Score:2)
Photons don't interact with each other to produce composite particles.
No means no. (Score:3)
Particle of force: The "No" particle first discovered by children worldwide.
Sense (Score:2)