Carnegie Mellon University’s Professor Curtis Meyer and his research colleagues explore an uncharted world inside protons and neutrons. For the first time, researchers have provided measurements describing a maximum boundary for a subatomic particle known as a hybrid meson in a journal paper published in Physical Review Letters. The measurements show scientists a path forward in a search for these elusive particles that provide a new look at the force that holds all matter together.
“The stage is set for future discoveries,” said Meyer, senior associate dean for CMU’s Mellon College of Science and the Otto Stern Professor of Physics. “We’re at an exciting phase where we’re able to analyze a great deal of data. This paper is the first to address one of the experiment’s foundational questions.”
Applying a symmetry property of the strong force, the team set the upper limit on the photoproduction cross sections of a hybrid meson known as the spin-exotic π1 (1600).