In a 17-mile circular tunnel underneath the border between France and Switzerland, an international collaboration of scientists runs experiments using the world's most advanced scientific instrument, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). By smashing together protons that travel close to light speed, particle physicists analyze these collisions and learn more about the fundamental makeup of all matter in the universe. In recent years, for instance, these experiments showed data leading to the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Higgs Boson.
Now, a team of high-energy experimental particle physicists, including several from the University of Kansas, has uncovered possible evidence of a subatomic quasiparticle dubbed an "odderon" that -- until now -- had only been theorized to exist. Their results currently are published on the arXiv and CERN preprint servers in two papers that have been submitted to peer-reviewed journals.
"We've been looking for this since the 1970s," said Christophe Royon, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the KU Department of Physics & Astronomy.
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