In high-energy collisions between argon and scandium atomic nuclei, scientists from the international NA61/SHINE experiment have uncovered a striking anomaly. It points to a possible breakdown of one of the most fundamental principles in particle physics: the near-symmetry between up and down quarks, known as flavor symmetry. This unexpected result could reveal gaps in our current models of nuclear collisions—or it might be the first sign of the elusive “new physics” that researchers have been chasing for decades.
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