Pitt, CMU researchers discover relatives of protons, neutrons

Jared Trent Stonesifer… Pitt, CMU researchers discover relatives of protons, neutrons

Jared Trent Stonesifer

Researchers from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University recently announced their discovery of two new types of particles closely related to protons and neutrons.

“We infer [the particles’] existence from observing their decay products, and we’re only seeing them now because even the decay products are pretty rare,” Joseph Boudreau, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Pitt and a researcher involved in the study, said in a press release

The Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Collider Detector at Fermilab sponsored the study.

“The proton and neutron family tree has several different branches,” James Russ, professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon, said in a press release. “These new particles are very similar to other relatives of the proton studied at Fermilab and elsewhere in a variety of experiments. The masses of these new states fit in beautifully with the pattern that we expect.”

Fermilab is a national laboratory funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, operated under contract by Universities Research Association, Inc. The institution plans on continuing research into this field, which leaves optimism for those scholars involved in the research.

“Our data samples continue to increase, and I expect to see even more discoveries of this kind in the near future,” said Boudreau.