The nucleus of an atom is made up of protons and neutrons, which exist due to the interactions of quarks, held together by gluons. For the first time, physicists have managed to reproduce all the properties of the atomic nucleus using protons and neutrons, as well as quarks and gluons. This has led to a complete picture of the atomic nucleus. The research has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters, reports IFLScience.
In the early 20th century, physicists believed that atoms consisted of protons and electrons. However, this understanding changed with the discovery of neutrons in 1932. Shortly after, scientists proposed the theory that protons and neutrons contain smaller particles known as quarks and gluons, which can be observed in high-energy experiments.
Quarks were first discovered in 1968, followed by gluons in 1979. These tiny elementary particles were found in particle accelerators using electrons and positrons. Since then, researchers have determined that there are 6 types of quarks and 8 types of gluons.
However, there is a slight issue in that the two descriptions of the atomic nucleus do not align well with each other. Physicists primarily gain knowledge about atomic nuclei by bombarding them with smaller particles such as electrons. When low-energy electrons collide with the atomic nucleus, it behaves as if it is made up of nucleons, meaning protons and neutrons, but at high energies, one can observe partons, which are quarks and gluons, inside the atomic nuclei. Now, scientists have succeeded in merging the two parallel descriptions of the atomic nucleus that previously existed separately.
Physicists analyzed data from experiments, including those conducted at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis focused on strongly interacting pairs of nucleons (proton-neutron, proton-proton, and neutron-neutron). They reported that they managed to extract information about the structure of smaller components, specifically quarks and gluons, from parton experiments that did not have sufficient energy to reveal this substructure.
One of the advantages of the study's results is that it provides physicists with a better description of experimental data than traditional methods for explaining the structure of the atomic nucleus.
Using observations of partons, physicists have for the first time managed to replicate the behavior of the atomic nucleus, which had previously only been explained using nucleons. The results of the research offer a better understanding of the structure of atomic nuclei.