New elementary particle predicted
Scientists at the RIKEN Research Institute in Japan predicted
(
https://bit.ly/3yuDuFp) the existence of a particle consisting
of six quarks. This is reported in an article published in the
journal Physical Review Letters. Quarks are called fundamental
particles that form heavier particles - mesons and baryons.
Baryons include protons and neutrons contained in atomic
nuclei. It is assumed that there can be systems of two baryons
- dibaryons.
The nucleus of the deuterium atom is regarded as a dibaryon, but
in this case the baryons are weakly bound to each other. The
researchers used a supercomputer to calculate the forces between
two hypothetical baryons, each of which consists of three charmed
quarks. Charm is a quantum number that describes one of six types
of quarks. It turned out that there could be a dibaryon, designated
by the authors as di-Omega and consisting of six quarks at once.
