
LHCb announces a charming new particle - lainon
https://home.cern/about/updates/2017/07/lhcb-announces-charming-new-particle
======
ddavis
Very cool! LHCb continues to put out some really awesome results. Here's to
hoping for some more exciting results from the rest of the LHC programme in
2017 and 2018.

------
breakingcups
What surprised me most is that CERN shelled out for a TLD? Those things don't
come cheap.

~~~
k_lander
maybe they were offered a discount for inventing the web

------
b34r
Did they not name it?

~~~
mmusson
Ξ++ cc or double charmed Xi.

~~~
_asummers
That's neat. I see the Xi. Does the ++ mean double, and the cc mean charmed?
Having trouble parsing that, even with the sub and superscripts from the
article. I guess more concretely, would a triple charmed (if that means
anything) be +++ cc or ++ ccc?

~~~
jwfxpr
There are constraints on how quarks combine, according to the standard model,
which mean (among other things) that you won't get three of the same quark
combining to form a particle. The _cc_ subscript indicates the presences of
two charm quarks, and the _++_ indicates the particle has an electric charge
Q=+2. The subscript values show the presence of heavy quarks: charm ( _c_ ),
bottom ( _b_ ) or top ( _t_ ) quarks are heavy. The superscript is electric
charge (Q), a value between -1 and +2 ( _-_ , _0_ , _+_ , or _++_ ).

------
nategri
composite particle... yawn

~~~
deepsun
Mmm, what do you exactly mean by composite?

Most of well-known particles are composite of quarks (proton, neutron etc), so
it's an exciting discovery indeed.

It would be yawn if if it was a composite of another particles, like Cooper
pairs.

~~~
nategri
>"Most of well-known particles are composite of quarks"

And _that 's_ why they're boring.

At this point, bring me hints of supersymmetry or bring me pillows.

~~~
maxharris
_At this point, bring me hints of supersymmetry or bring me pillows._

What's the difference between sleeping _forever_ and being dead? The history
of science is rife with examples of people waiting for ages for evidence of
their incorrect pet theories...

~~~
Filligree
> What's the difference between sleeping forever and being dead?

That is not dead which can eternal lie. Charming particles may be sleep-
inducing, but there's always a chance of a strange new one over the aeons.

