- Today, CERN announced an exceptional new discovery that was made by the LHCb, which unveiled five new states all at once.
- The team notes that this revelation improves our understanding of quantum theory in general and, most notably, gives us new clues about the earliest moments of our universe.
A Unique Find
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the latest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex, is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. It features a 27 kilometer (16 mile) ring made of superconducting magnets and accelerating structures built to boost the energy of particles in the chamber. In the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams are forced to collide from opposite directions at speeds close to the speed of light.The energy densities that are created when these collisions occur cause ordinary matter to melt into its constituent parts—quarks and gluons. This allows us to interrogate the basic constituents of matter–the fundamental particles of the Standard Model.
It is a project of massive, unparalleled proportions.
More than 10,000 scientists and engineers are currently working together to help us learn about the fundamental properties of physics using the LHC. To date, these men and women have brought about some impressive discoveries. The LHC team is responsible for the discovery of the Higgs Boson, potentially disproving the existence of the paranormal, and discovering a host of new particles.
And today, a paper proved that these discoveries aren’t slowing down.
The Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) collaboration just announced the discovery of a new system of five particles all in a single analysis. Discovering a new state is a feat in itself – but discovering five new states all at once is exceptional. Especially since there’s such an overwhelming level of statistical significance – i.e. this isn’t just a fluke.
