Scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have discovered a new type of meson called Ds3*(2860).

The discovery of this new particle provides opportunities to learn more about how the most powerful forces in nature operate. It will also transform scientific understanding of the strong interaction or the fundamental force in nature found inside protons.

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Ds3*(2860) is a meson containing a charm anti-quark and a strange quark.

While forces like gravity and electromagnetism have been explained and govern most our life, the subatomic level is governed by strong and weak nuclear forces that control the behavior of particles.

The strong force holds protons and neutrons together to form atomic nuclei. It's also responsible for the existence of these particles as it binds quarks together. For protons, two up quarks and one down quark are bound together.

Tim Gershon, a professor at the University of Warwick, says the force is so strong that the binding energy of the proton contributes more to the weight of the proton than the quark itself.

While other quarks are heavier and more unstable, they can be created using the LHC. Mesons are one such particle made up of a quark and an anti-quark and are bound by the strong force.

Mesons help scientists understand the more mysterious strong forces. Using the process called Lattice QCD, scientists can carry forth several computations on strong forces.

To make sure these calculations are correct, however, scientists need to use experiments. This is where mesons come in.

Mesons are an ideal particle to use for these experiments since these have a charm quark and has a spin 3.

The spin of the particle allows scientists to be sure about the particle they are using. There's only one way to create a particle with spin 3, thereby making their experiment model more manageable.

There are six quarks known to physicists: Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Beauty and Top.

TagsLHC, CERN, Mesons, Strong forces