In a new development at CERN, researchers at the LHCb collaboration have determined the spin-parity of singly heavy charm baryons for the first time, addressing a long-standing mystery in baryon research.

Singly heavy baryons are particles containing one heavy quark—which in this case is a charm quark—and two light quarks. While the existence of these particles is not new, the exact nature of their excitation modes has remained elusive.

The study, published in Physical Review Letters, determined the nature by measuring the spin-parity of these charm baryons. Phys.org spoke to co-author Guanyue Wan, a Ph.D. Candidate at Peking University, China.