X(3960) is a tetraquark, theoretical analysis suggests

 

Exotic particle Artist’s impression of a tetraquark showing its four constituent quarks. (Courtesy: CERN)

A theoretical study has confirmed that a particle observed at CERN’s LHCb experiment in 2022 is indeed a tetraquark – supporting earlier hypotheses that were based on the analysis of its observed decay products. Tetraquarks comprise four quarks and do not fit into the conventional classification of hadrons, which defines only mesons (quark and an antiquark) and baryons (three quarks). Tetraquarks are of great interest to particle physicists because their  exotic nature provides opportunities to deepen our understanding of the intricate physics of the strong interactions that bind quarks together in hadrons.

“X(3960) is a new hadron discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC),” Bing-Dong Wan of Liaoning Normal University and Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, and the author of the study, tells Physics World. “Since 2003, many new hadrons have been discovered in experiments, and some of them appear to be tetraquarks, while only a few can be confirmed as such.”

Named for its mass of 3.96 GeV – about four times that of a proton – X(3960) stands out, even amongst exotic hadrons. Its decay into D mesons containing heavy charm quarks implies that X(3960) should contain charm quarks. The details of the interaction of charm quarks with other strongly interacting particles is rather poorly understood, making X(3960) interesting to study.  Additionally, by the standards of unstable strongly interacting particles, X(3960) has a long lifetime – around 10-23 s – indicating unique underlying quark dynamics.

These intriguing properties of X(3960) led Wan to investigate its structure theoretically to determine if it is a tetraquark or not. In a recent paper in Nuclear Physics B, he describes how he used Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov sum rules in this calculations. This approach examines strongly interacting particles by relating their properties to those of their constituent quarks and the gluons that bind them together. The dynamics of these constituents can be accurately described by the fundamental theory of strong interactions known as quantum chromodynamics (QCD).

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High-energy collision study reveals new insights into quark-gluon plasma

 

In high-energy physics, researchers have unveiled how high-energy partons lose energy in nucleus-nucleus collisions, an essential process in studying quark-gluon plasma (QGP). This finding could enhance our knowledge of the early universe moments after the Big Bang.

The study reveals that the jet transport coefficient over temperature cubed, a critical factor in parton energy loss in QGP, decreases with increasing medium temperature. This discovery, supported by a significant enhancement of the elliptic flow parameter (v2(pT)) for large transverse momentum (pT) hadrons, provides a more in-depth understanding of jet quenching in high-energy collisions.

High-energy collisions create a hot, dense state of matter known as the QGP. As partons pass through this medium, they lose energy. This process, known as jet quenching, leads to the suppression of high pT hadrons, measured by the nuclear modification factor (RAA(pT)), and the azimuthal anisotropy, measured by the v2(pT). The team used a next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD parton model to analyze data from the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). By fitting their models to the experimental data, they found that the jet transport coefficient's scaled value (q^/T3) decreases with temperature. This novel approach provides a more accurate description of how jets lose energy in these extreme conditions.

"This discovery helps us understand the behavior of partons in the quark-gluon plasma more accurately," says Prof. Han-Zhong Zhang, the corresponding author. "It shows that partons lose more energy near the critical temperature, which could explain the enhanced azimuthal anisotropy observed in high-energy collisions."

The findings suggest that as partons travel through the QGP, they lose more energy near the transition from QGP to the hadron phase, strengthening the azimuthal anisotropy by approximately 10% at RHIC and LHC. "In the future, we hope to refine our model and enrich the information on qˆ, allowing us to better describe RAA(pT) and v2(pT) simultaneously for both RHIC and LHC energies," Prof. Zhang says. This study advances high-energy nuclear physics, providing deeper insights into jet energy loss in high-energy collisions. These findings could enhance our understanding of the quark-gluon plasma and pave the way for future research into the fundamental properties of matter under extreme conditions. This research is a collaborative effort between South China Normal University and Central China Normal University.

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