Physicists find the first clue about 'colloidal particles' - a type of particle formed by force

After decades of effort and observations of billions of particle birth events, a group of physicists made a shocking observation .

In particle physics, the Standard Model , literally ' Standard Model' , is the theory that describes three of the four fundamental forces that we know of. It is a solid support for the way physics understands force and the particles of matter that make up this universe. The Standard Model can be imagined as the periodic table of particle physics.

Standard Model of Elementary Particles - (Photo: Wikimedia Commons).

The Standard Model classifies all subatomic particles, also known as elementary particles. The particles in the model are divided into basic fermions consisting of 6 types of quarks, 6 types of leptons (with the electron being one of them); and fundamental bosons include the Higgs boson (also known as the "God Particle"), photons - representing electromagnetism, gluons - representing the strong force, W bosons and Z bosons - representing the weak force .

The four basic forces mentioned include:

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetic
3. Weak force - mechanism of interaction between subatomic particles
4. Strong force - the fundamental interaction that packages quarks into particles such as protons, neutrons and some other hadrons.

The Standard Model Theory describes the interactions between three electromagnetic forces, the strong force and the weak force, excluding gravity.

The Standard Model predicts the existence of many particles, but in nature there are still many mysterious particles that elude the curious eyes of the scientific community. Among them are 'colloids' , nicknamed 'glueballs ', which are a group of particles made up of gluons - powerful force-transmitting particles. It can be said that colloidal particles are particles made up entirely of magnetic force.

For a long time, the particle physicists have been trying to prove the existence of this mysterious particle. And in the latest development, physicists at a particle accelerator facility in Beijing have just found traces of colloidal particles. A decades-long research effort discovered a new type of particle decaying from the J/ψ meson, which they temporarily named the new particle X(2370).

Illustration of a particle collision - (Photo: AI).

A 'marble' invisible to the naked eye, creating a magnetic force

The key difference between colloidal particles and other particles lies in their composition and the interactions they represent. In other hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, gluons act as 'glue' that transmits strong forces between quarks. In contrast, colloidal particles exist in a pure gluon state, made up of only gluons. The unique interactions between gluons make colloidal particles special.

Detecting and studying colloidal particles is inherently difficult because, based on known knowledge, scientists believe that they will mix with other quark-containing particles and decay into familiar particles. That makes them difficult to detect in testing environments.

But since it became operational in 2008, the Beijing Spectrometer III project - which is carried out at the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider - has detected 10 billion events at which particles J/ψ mesons are formed.

J/ψ mesons are particularly unstable, have a short lifespan and quickly decay into other types of particles, including the X(2370) particle.

Illustration of colloidal particles X(2370) - (Photo: AI).

X(2370) particles have the properties expected of a colloidal particle: they are uncharged, have a strange pairing and have a mass that matches previous colloidal particle predictions. The new discovery coincides with predictions made by theoretical physics ' quantum chromodynamics' (roughly translated from 'quantum chromodynamics' , which is used in the study of strong force interactions between quarks through gluons). .

According to researchers in China, the rate of random statistical anomalies, or in other words the rate of detecting just an error in the system, is only 0.00006%. The scientific report was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

However, physicists still have reason to be skeptical. The particle production rate X(2370) does not match previous predictions of colloidal particle formation. According to physicist and science journalist Ethan Siegel, it cannot be ruled out that X(2370) is a special particle state rather than a specific particle.

Siegel believes that new research is needed to confirm the true nature of X(2370), but he considers the existence of colloidal particles'.

He added: 'If colloidal particles do not exist in nature, then the Standard Model probably has problems. However, if colloidal particles really exist, then X(2370) is probably the first [colloidal particle] to be revealed to the human eye' .