Large Hadron Collider scientists including a group from the UK believe they have detected their first new subatomic particle. Known as Chi (the Greek X symbol) b (3P), it is a "boson" like the fabled Higgs particle believed to underpin mass.
Chib(3P) provides a new way of combining two other elementary particles, the "beauty" quark and its antiquark, so that they bind together. Quarks are the building blocks of protons and neutrons, which form the cores of atoms.
They come in six different "flavours" including "beauty", also known as the "bottom" quark.
Unlike the hypothetical Higgs which is not made up of smaller particles, Chib(3P) combines two heavy objects via the same "strong" force that holds the atomic nucleus together.
What is thought to be a clear signal of the particle was found in data from Atlas, one of the Large Hadron Collider's four huge detectors.
The £4 billion particle accelerator, dubbed the "Big Bang Machine", fills a 27-kilometre circular tunnel that straddles the Swiss-French border near Geneva.
It is designed to recreate the conditions moments after the Big Bang that created the universe 13.7 billion years ago.
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