Heptaquark

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In particle physics, heptaquarks are a family of hypothetical composite particles, each consisting of seven quarks or antiquarks of any flavours. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Properties

One model predicts that the lowest-energy heptaquark state would be a spin-1/2 or spin-3/2 state of energy roughly 2.5 GeV. [5] Another study found that the most stable heptaquark would include three strange quarks and two strange antiquarks. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

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In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong interaction. They are analogous to molecules, which are held together by the electric force. Most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from two hadrons: the proton and the neutron, while most of the mass of the protons and neutrons is in turn due to the binding energy of their constituent quarks, due to the strong force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quark</span> Elementary particle, main constituent of matter

A quark is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly observable matter is composed of up quarks, down quarks and electrons. Owing to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, which include baryons and mesons, or in quark–gluon plasmas. For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of hadrons.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omega baryon</span> Subatomic hadron particle

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Ω
and are either neutral or have a +2, +1 or −1 elementary charge. They are baryons containing no up or down quarks. Omega baryons containing top quarks are not expected to be observed. This is because the Standard Model predicts the mean lifetime of top quarks to be roughly 5×10−25 s, which is about a twentieth of the timescale for strong interactions, and therefore that they do not form hadrons.

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−0.4
 MeV/c2
. Like all quarks, the up quark is an elementary fermion with spin 1/2, and experiences all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. The antiparticle of the up quark is the up antiquark, which differs from it only in that some of its properties, such as charge have equal magnitude but opposite sign.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charm quark</span> Type of quark

The charm quark, charmed quark, or c quark is an elementary particle found in composite subatomic particles called hadrons such as the J/psi meson and the charmed baryons created in particle accelerator collisions. Several bosons, including the W and Z bosons and the Higgs boson, can decay into charm quarks. All charm quarks carry charm, a quantum number. This second generation particle is the third-most-massive quark with a mass of 1.27±0.02 GeV/c2 as measured in 2022 and a charge of +2/3 e.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Top quark</span> Type of quark

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In particle physics, hexaquarks, alternatively known as sexaquarks, are a large family of hypothetical particles, each particle consisting of six quarks or antiquarks of any flavours. Six constituent quarks in any of several combinations could yield a colour charge of zero; for example a hexaquark might contain either six quarks, resembling two baryons bound together, or three quarks and three antiquarks. Once formed, dibaryons are predicted to be fairly stable by the standards of particle physics.

The eta and eta prime meson are isosinglet mesons made of a mixture of up, down and strange quarks and their antiquarks. The charmed eta meson and bottom eta meson are similar forms of quarkonium; they have the same spin and parity as the (light)
η
defined, but are made of charm quarks and bottom quarks respectively. The top quark is too heavy to form a similar meson, due to its very fast decay.

In particle physics, B mesons are mesons composed of a bottom antiquark and either an up, down, strange or charm quark. The combination of a bottom antiquark and a top quark is not thought to be possible because of the top quark's short lifetime. The combination of a bottom antiquark and a bottom quark is not a B meson, but rather bottomonium, which is something else entirely.

A strangelet is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter, small enough to be considered a particle. The size of an object composed of strange matter could, theoretically, range from a few femtometers across to arbitrarily large. Once the size becomes macroscopic, such an object is usually called a strange star. The term "strangelet" originates with Edward Farhi and Robert Jaffe in 1984. Strangelets can convert matter to strange matter on contact. Strangelets have been suggested as a dark matter candidate.

In particle physics, W′ and Z′ bosons refer to hypothetical gauge bosons that arise from extensions of the electroweak symmetry of the Standard Model. They are named in analogy with the Standard Model W and Z bosons.

References

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  2. Hadron Spectroscopy. American Institute of Physics. 2003. p. 470. ISBN   978-0-7354-0197-6 . Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  3. Bijker, Roelof; Casten, R.; Frank, Alejandro (2004). Nuclear Physics, Large and Small: International Conference on Microscopic Studies of Collective Phenomena. American Institute of Physics. p. 244. ISBN   978-0-7354-0207-2 . Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  4. Hosaka, Atsushi; Hotta, Tomoaki (2005). Pentaquark04 - Proceedings Of The International Workshop. World Scientific. p. 393. ISBN   978-981-4480-35-2 . Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  5. Nuñez V., M.; Lerma H., S.; Hess, P. O.; Jesgarz, S.; Civitarese, O.; Reboiro, M. (23 August 2004). "Modeling pentaquark and heptaquark states". Physical Review C . 70 (2): 025201. arXiv: nucl-th/0405052 . Bibcode:2004PhRvC..70b5201N. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.70.025201. S2CID   119393500.
  6. Park, Aaron; Park, Woosung; Lee, Su Houng (30 August 2017). "Heptaquarks with two heavy antiquarks in a simple chromomagnetic model". Physical Review D . 96 (3): 034029. arXiv: 1706.10025 . Bibcode:2017PhRvD..96c4029P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.96.034029. ISSN   2470-0010. S2CID   119445036.