New subatomic particles discovered thanks to Canadian physicists

On November 19, 2014 the Large Hadron Collider Beauty Experiment (LHCb) conducted by CERN discovered two new subatomic particles. The particles were originally predicted by York University physicist Randy Lewis, and Richard Woloshyn of TRIUMF, a particle physics lab based in Vancouver. Steven Blusk from Syracuse University, New York told CBC, “We did have good reason to believe those particles would be there”.

The newly discovered particles, designated as Xi_b'- and Xi_b*- , are new types of baryons. Baryons are particles that are made up of three elemental subatomic particles called quarks. These particles are the same type as protons and neutrons, which make up for the nucleus of an atom. The new particles are approximately six times larger than a proton. These also contain a b quark, which is heavier than those found in a proton, causing an increase in its size. The other two quarks present in the new baryons are one d quark; those found in neutrons and protons, and one middleweight quark yet to be identified.

Lewis and Woloshyn predicted the mass and composition of the new particles using a computer calculation based on quantum chromodynamics theory. This theory describes the fundamental particles of matter, how the particles interact, and the forces between them. The calculation that was used describes the mathematical rules of how quarks behave.