Scientists have found the first hints that quarks, subatomic particles, can fuse with each other and release tens of times more energy than reactions in the interiors of stars, according to an article published in the journal Nature.
“Collisions of tetraquarks should lead to the release of about 200 MeV energy, which is about 10 times more than give rise to thermonuclear reactions. To date, such reactions have no practical application, since the particles in which they can occur have an extremely short life. On the other hand, all this points to the possibility of the existence of stable exotic matter, consisting of "pretty" quarks, "- said Gerald Miller, a physicist at the University of Washington in Seattle, commenting on the discovery.
According to modern concepts, all elementary particles are composed of small objects that physicists call quarks. Protons, neutrons and other "heavy" particles called baryons contain three quarks. Their smaller counterparts, the so-called mesons, contain two elements - the "ordinary" quark and the antiquark, the basic constituent of antimatter.
In principle, the physical theories existing today do not exclude the possibility that elementary particles consisting of four or even five quarks of different "colors" can exist. Relatively recently, scientists began to find signs of the existence of such particles, tetraquarks and pentaquarks, traces of the existence of which were found at the LHC and at the Tevatron collider.
Their discovery, as well as the discovery of the exotic xi-baryon, a superheavy particle with a double positive charge, made Marek Karliner and Jonathan Rosner, theoretical physicists at the University of Tel Aviv and Chicago, wonder how they might particles like this, and why they remain stable for an unusually long time.
Analyzing their properties, scientists came to the conclusion that tetraquarks and xy-baryons should be formed during collisions of other, relatively light unstable elementary particles, during which the quarks inside them will interact with each other, "change places", lose energy and form more heavy particles.
For example, the fusion of two lambda baryons containing one heavy and two light quarks will lead to the production of xy-baryons containing two heavy and one light quark, and one neutron, consisting of three light quarks, as well as the release a lot of energy.
Likewise, physicists note that the collision of two B-mesons, particles that today are considered a "window" to the world of "new physics", will lead to the birth of heavy tetraquarks and the release of a similar amount of energy, as well as gamma radiation.
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This process, as scientists note, is a kind of analogue of thermonuclear reactions in the interior of the Sun and other stars - hydrogen, helium and other light elements in their center constantly collide and combine into heavier elements such as oxygen, lithium, carbon or iron, simultaneously releasing huge amounts of energy. As a rule, the heavier the quarks inside the colliding particles, the more energy will be released in the "thermoquark" reaction.
There are no practical, including military, applications for this discoveries yet, but it suggests that in the Universe, theoretically, clusters of exotic, but stable matter or particles, almost entirely consisting of b quarks or other heavy subatomic particles, can exist. Their discovery, scientists conclude, could completely turn modern theories about the birth and evolution of the Universe.