Monday 10 March 2025
Physicists have made a significant breakthrough in understanding the behavior of tetraquarks, exotic particles that are composed of four quarks instead of the usual three found in protons and neutrons.
Tetraquarks were first discovered in the early 2000s, but since then, scientists have struggled to understand their properties. The latest research has shed light on how these particles change shape as they move at different energies.
Quarks are among the most fundamental building blocks of matter, but they don’t exist alone – they are always found in combinations known as hadrons. Protons and neutrons, for example, are made up of three quarks each. Tetraquarks, on the other hand, consist of four quarks bound together.
In their natural state, tetraquarks are extremely heavy, with masses thousands of times greater than those of protons and neutrons. However, when they interact with other particles at high energies, they can break apart into lighter components. This process is known as hadronization.
The problem for physicists has been understanding how tetraquarks behave during this hadronization process. Do they maintain their four-quark structure, or do they disintegrate into smaller particles?
Researchers have used computer simulations to study the behavior of tetraquarks at different energies. They found that as the energy increases, the tetraquarks start to break apart and change shape. However, surprisingly, they don’t always disintegrate completely – instead, they often form other exotic particles called mesons.
Mesons are made up of one quark and one antiquark, which are bound together by a type of force known as the strong nuclear force. In the case of tetraquarks, the four quarks can reorganize themselves to form two mesons, each containing an antiquark and a quark from the original tetraquark.
These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the strong nuclear force, which is responsible for holding quarks together inside hadrons. The research also opens up new avenues for studying exotic particles that are not yet well understood.
The next step will be to experimentally confirm these theoretical predictions using powerful particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider. If successful, this could lead to a deeper understanding of the fundamental forces of nature and the behavior of quarks at the smallest scales.
Cite this article: “Tetraquark Behavior Unraveled”, The Science Archive, 2025.
Quarks, Tetraquarks, Hadrons, Particles, Energies, Strong Nuclear Force, Mesons, Quark Antiquark, Fundamental Forces, Large Hadron Collider
