LHC Possibly Discovers 'Toponium,' a New and Tiny Hadron
18 April 2025 · Uncategorized ·
Source: · https://technews.tw/2025/04/16/particle-toponium-lhc-cern-top-quark-antiquark-cms/
Top quarks, currently the heaviest known elementary particles, present a fascinating system for physicists to study. Over the past three decades, particle accelerators have been instrumental in investigating top quark momentum. Recently, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced a potential discovery of toponium—a hypothetical hadron considered potentially the smallest ever observed.
The LHC hosts four primary detector experiments: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and ALICE, which have consistently advanced particle physics research in recent years.
The Standard Model (SM) provides a framework for describing fundamental particles and three basic forces: electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear. However, the SM remains incomplete as it does not explain phenomena such as dark matter or energy, nor does it incorporate gravity—an area primarily addressed by General Relativity.
Quarks are one type of elementary particle described within the Standard Model; six distinct “flavors” exist today, with the top quark being the heaviest, weighing up to 173 GeV. They interact via the strong force but typically decay through the weak interaction into W bosons or bottom quarks; charm quark decays occur less frequently, while down quark decays are rare.
When quarks combine, they form composite particles called hadrons. However, due to its immense mass and extremely short lifespan, a top quark does not have sufficient time under the influence of strong nuclear forces before it decays via electroweak interaction. Consequently, pairs of top-antitop quarks cannot exist long enough to be considered stable particles.
Despite this limitation, scientists theorize that unknown particles beyond the Standard Model could interact with top quarks—potentially including the predicted hypothetical hadron known as toponium, formed by short-lived pairs of top and anti-top quarks. Its extremely brief existence has prevented detection despite ongoing efforts from LHC experiments.
Now, after analyzing data collected between 2016 and 2018 within the CMS experiment at the LHC, researchers have announced a potential detection of a new particle highly likely to be identified as toponium. If confirmed, this would represent the discovery of the smallest hadron ever found, opening up an entirely new field for research; however, single experimental results are insufficient and further verification from sister experiments like ATLAS will follow.
The LHC hosts four primary detector experiments: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and ALICE, which have consistently advanced particle physics research in recent years.
The Standard Model (SM) provides a framework for describing fundamental particles and three basic forces: electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear. However, the SM remains incomplete as it does not explain phenomena such as dark matter or energy, nor does it incorporate gravity—an area primarily addressed by General Relativity.
Quarks are one type of elementary particle described within the Standard Model; six distinct “flavors” exist today, with the top quark being the heaviest, weighing up to 173 GeV. They interact via the strong force but typically decay through the weak interaction into W bosons or bottom quarks; charm quark decays occur less frequently, while down quark decays are rare.
When quarks combine, they form composite particles called hadrons. However, due to its immense mass and extremely short lifespan, a top quark does not have sufficient time under the influence of strong nuclear forces before it decays via electroweak interaction. Consequently, pairs of top-antitop quarks cannot exist long enough to be considered stable particles.
Despite this limitation, scientists theorize that unknown particles beyond the Standard Model could interact with top quarks—potentially including the predicted hypothetical hadron known as toponium, formed by short-lived pairs of top and anti-top quarks. Its extremely brief existence has prevented detection despite ongoing efforts from LHC experiments.
Now, after analyzing data collected between 2016 and 2018 within the CMS experiment at the LHC, researchers have announced a potential detection of a new particle highly likely to be identified as toponium. If confirmed, this would represent the discovery of the smallest hadron ever found, opening up an entirely new field for research; however, single experimental results are insufficient and further verification from sister experiments like ATLAS will follow.