Jefferson Lab finds quantum hints of two new strange quark structures

Image: Jefferson Lab illustration/Shannon West · jlab.org A beam of high-energy photons interacting with a proton target at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has unexpectedly revealed evidence of two new structures, despite researchers initially searching for a confirmed XYZ candidate. The results from the Gluonic Excitations (GlueX) Collaboration, recently published in Physical Review Letters, suggest these structures could help clarify the perplexing family of XYZ states that don’t fit neatly into the established model of particle physics. “We went searching for a confirmed XYZ candidate with a photon beam but instead found two other structures,” said Malte Albrecht, a staff scientist at Jefferson Lab. These findings may offer insights into the fundamental forces shaping the formation of matter. The observation of two previously unseen structures resulting from high-energy photon interactions with protons at Jefferson Lab offers a new avenue for understanding exotic XYZ states, particles containing at…