Analyzing data from the Large Hadron Collider at the European Institute for Nuclear Research (CERN), physicists at the University of Oxford (UK) have discovered a type of subatomic particle that can change state between particles of matter and particles of antimatter.
This finding suggests that the inexplicably small mass difference between the two particles may have saved the universe from annihilation soon after it began to form.
Antimatter is the “scary twin” of normal matter, but it looks amazingly like matter – in fact, the only real difference is that antimatter carries the opposite electric charge as the electric charge of matter.
This means that if a particle of matter and a particle of antimatter come into contact, they will annihilate each other and create an energy-generating explosion.
It is even more complicated and confusing to learn that certain particles, like photons, are in fact their own antiparticles. Other types of particles are even considered as a strange mixture of the two states at the same time, due to a random quantum superposition (illustrated in particular by the experiment on inference). designed by Austro-Irish physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 while discussing with the great physicist Albert Einstein about Copenhagen’s understanding of quantum mechanics). This means that these particles actually oscillate between matter and antimatter.
And so far scientists have discovered a new type of nucleus capable of converting matter into antimatter and vice versa – the charm meson.
This type of subatomic particle is usually composed of a charm quark and an up untiquark, while its antimatter equivalent consists of an antiquark charm (charm antiquark) and an up quark.
Normally, these states are kept separate, but new research shows that charming mesons can spontaneously switch between the two.
The key to this secret is the slightly different mass of the charming meson in two opposite states (matter and antimatter). And we have to understand that the “slight” difference here is extremely small.
This extremely precise measurement was obtained from data obtained during the second execution of the Large Hadron Collider, carried out by physicists at the University of Oxford.
Charming mesons are created at the Large Hadron Collider when protons collide with each other, and normally these particles travel only a few millimeters before decaying into other particles.
By comparing attractive mesons that tend to travel farther than those that decay earlier, the team of researchers identified a difference in mass that is the main factor that causes a meson to turn into an anti-charm meson.
This discovery could explain the great mystery of the universe. According to the Standard Model of nuclear physics, the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe about 13.8 billion years ago should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter, and over time, collide and annihilate, making the universe an empty place. Obviously that didn’t happen, and somehow matter did prevail, but what caused such an imbalance?
From this new discovery, it is hypothesized that particles such as charm mesons pass from antimatter to matter more often than they pass from matter to antimatter. .
Finding out if this is true – and if so, why – could be the key to one of science’s greatest mysteries, the existence of the universe.
