Discover More: Research team measures the mass of the top quark with unparalleled accuracy

By -

Research team measures 
the mass of the 
top quark with 
unparalleled accuracy

Date Posted: 21st April 2022





As we already know, the top quark, being a part of the third generation, is the heaviest particle of all quarks as the Higgs charge determines how strongly a particle engages with the Higgs field, or how strongly it couples with the Higgs boson and top quarks have the highest Higgs charge among all the fundamental particles.

The CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid is a general-purpose detector at the LHC) collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has performed the most accurate ever measurement of the mass of the top quark. 

Knowing this allows testing of the internal consistency of the mathematical description of all elementary particles, the Standard Model.

Our knowledge of the stability of the universe depends on our combined knowledge of the Higgs Boson and the top quark masses. We only know that the universe is very close to a metastable state with the current measurements of the top quark mass. If the top quark was even a little different, the universe would be less stable, probably eventually disappearing in an event similar to the Big Bang.

Metastable state - In quantum field theory, a false vacuum is a hypothetical vacuum that is stable, but not in the most stable state possible (it is metastable). It is a situation that is stable for now but could quickly deteriorate if something were to go wrong.

As for why the stability of our universe depends on the Higgs boson and the top quark, I would recommend you to read the following discussion:


The CMS team measured 5 different properties of collision events in which the top quarks were produced (earlier, 3 were measured), using data from proton-proton LHC collisions collected by CMS detector in 2016. Further, an in-depth understanding of remaining uncertainties and interdependencies was carried out. The top quark mass was estimated to be 171.77+0.38 GeV, which is consistent with the previous predictions from the Standard Model.

Source: CERN

Read More: https://phys.org/news/2022-04-team-mass-quark-unparalleled-accuracy.html

Citation:

staff, S. X. (2022, April 19). Research team measures the mass of the top quark with unparalleled accuracy. Phys.org; Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-team-mass-quark-unparalleled-accuracy.html

‌

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What are Quarks, Leptons and Bosons?

By -
    Table of contents  WHAT ARE  QUARKS, LEPTONS  AND  BOSONS? View my previous article here - How were Neutrinos Discovered? View the next article here - The Fundamental Forces ----------------------------------------- Here is a brief overview of what are quarks, leptons and bosons - families of particles that make up the Standard Model! (Based on what has been discussed so far).  * ADDITIONAL * -  A fermion is any particle that has an odd half-integer (like 1/2, 3/2, and so forth) spin.  Quarks  and  leptons , as well as most composite particles, like  protons  and  neutrons , are fermions. QUARKS: Quarks are subatomic particles that are found in protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. There are 6 quarks .  Up quark and Down quark belong to the first generation. Charm quark and Strange quark belong to the second generation. Top quark and Bottom quark belong to the third generation. The second and third generation particles are more massive and unstable when compared to the
Read more

Particle Physics - Introduction

By -
Table of contents   PARTICLE PHYSICS - INTRODUCTION View the next article here - More on Particle Physics and Why it matters? ----------------------------------------- What is Particle physics? Let me give a hint by telling you what particles are? Everything in our universe is made up of extremely small components known as particles. Now did you get it? Particle Physics is nothing but the study of how our universe was made and what our universe is constituted of. To prove their existence and see how they behave, scientists observe them until the particles leave a sign. Often, instead of waiting for the particles to leave a sign, they make particles by colliding known particles. How? Well, the accelerators speed up the known particles almost to the speed of light. The particles collide and release massive energy, which results in the creation of new particles. This is why Particle physics is also known as High Energy Physics . At present, there are 17 particles that have been identifie
Read more

Gluons

By -
Image
    Table of contents  GLUONS View my previous article here - Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics and Quantum Chromodynamics View the next article here - Introduction to Feynman Diagrams ----------------------------------------- Just like how electrons carry the electric charge, the quarks also carry the electric charge, but this electric charge is weaker in quarks. Quarks additionally carry a coloured charge , as discussed in the previous article . This coloured charge generates a gluon force field. An accelerating quark creates a vibrating ripple in the gluon field, which is known as gluons. Just like how a photon can create an electron and positron (anti-electron) pair - energetic gluon can create a quark and antiquark pair - While the electromagnetic charge has only one version, the colour charge has 3. But the colour charge never shows up in the hadron quark combinations. (Keep reading to find out about hadrons.) This led to the idea that the three colour charges were red, yel
Read more