• Question: Does anyone know whether this can happen where two different particles can submerge into each other and create a bigger particle consequently making something new that we haven't seen before?

    Asked by anon-258065 on 3 Jul 2020.
    • Photo: Ry Cutter

      Ry Cutter answered on 3 Jul 2020: last edited 3 Jul 2020 12:11 pm

      That sounds like fusion! This happens mostly in stars, but we’re trying to make it happen here on Earth as well in something called a Tokamak. The force pushing two elements together overcomes electrostatic forces, creating a new element (though we usually know what the element is) and some energy.
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      There does exist an analogous theory for fusion in sub-atomic particles (quarks)! Some scientists at Tel Aviv University and the University of Chicago have found evidence from the LHC that quarks can be fused in a similar way. If we can find a way to purposely fuse quarks, there’ll be a whole bunch of particles we haven’t seen before!
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      *edit* some useful links:
      – https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24289
      – https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/08/no-melting-quarks-will-never-work-as-an-energy-source/#2f65f7222232
      – https://phys.org/news/2017-11-theoretical-quark-fusion-powerful-hydrogen.html

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      Fantastic question!
      Ry

    • Photo: Joel Goldstein

      Joel Goldstein answered on 3 Jul 2020:

      This is pretty much what we try to do in particle physics, particularly in colliders (like the LHC at CERN). We take “ordinary” subatomic particles like electrons and protons, accelerate them to almost the speed of light, and then smash them into each other. According to relativity, all of the kinetic energy of the colliding particles can go into making mass (E=mc2) and this could be in the form of new, really massive particles. Notice that the new particles don’t have to contain any trace at all of the original particles!

      For example, in 2012 at the LHC we showed that you can take two gluons (massless particles that carry the strong force that holds the quarks together inside protons) and collide them to produce a Higgs boson – a completely new, particle that had never been seen before. The Higgs boson does not contain the gluons in any sense (it may be truly fundamental) and has a mass similar to a silver atom!!

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