A particle with two heavy charm quarks can exist for only quadrillionths of a second
Physicists have finally captured a rare particle containing two heavy charm quarks, a massive subatomic anomaly that exists for a mere 15 to 160 quadrillionths of a second before decaying into more stable forms.
The discovery of the doubly charmed baryon at the Large Hadron Collider resolved a scientific mystery that spanned over sixty years. This unique particle is composed of two charm quarks and one down quark, making it more than three times heavier than a standard proton. Because charm quarks are roughly 1.3 times the mass of a proton, housing two of them in a single baryon creates an incredibly unstable and dense environment.
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