An odderon—in theory—is a subatomic quasiparticle, meaning something that behaves enough like a particle to be considered one. The particle briefly forms when protons collide in high-energy collisions, and in some cases, do not shatter but bounce off one another and scatter.
First theorized back in 1973, it has eluded observation by scientists working with particle accelerators. Since then, scientists have been seeking the Odderon particle.
A Swedish-Hungarian research group has discovered mythical particles in experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. They identified the Odderon in connection with an advanced data analysis study at the particle accelerator CERN.
Roman Pasechnik, particle physics researcher at Lund University, said, “This is a particle physics milestone! It feels fantastic to contribute to an increased understanding of matter, the fundamental building blocks of our world.”
Through extensive data analyses of elastic proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions, the researchers could hone in on the new particle.
Its discovery would upend our understanding of how particles should behave according to the Standard Model of physics and give us more insight into what governs their movements at light speed.
Roman Pasechnik said, “We worked with some of the world’s best particle physicists. They were astonished when we published our results.”
Journal Reference:
- Csörgő, T., Novák, T., Pasechnik, R., et al. Evidence of Odderon-exchange from scaling properties of elastic scattering at TeV energies. Eur. Phys. J. C 81, 180 (2021). DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-08867-6