Exotic hadrons are subatomic particles composed of quarks and gluons, but which – unlike "well-known" such as , and – consist of more than three . By contrast, "ordinary" hadrons contain just two or three quarks. Hadrons with explicit valence gluon content would also be considered exotic. In theory, there is no limit on the number of quarks in a hadron, as long as the hadron's color charge is white, or color-neutral.
Consistent with ordinary hadrons, exotic hadrons are classified as being either , like ordinary baryons, or , like ordinary mesons. According to this classification scheme, , containing five valence quarks, are exotic baryons, while (four valence quarks) and (six quarks, consisting of either a dibaryon or three quark-antiquark pairs) would be considered . Tetraquark and pentaquark particles are believed to have been observed and are being investigated; have not yet been confirmed as observed.
Exotic hadrons can be searched for by looking for S-matrix poles with quantum numbers forbidden to ordinary hadrons. Experimental signatures for such exotic hadrons had been seen by 2003 at the latest,See Tetraquark but they remain a topic of controversy in particle physics.
Jaffe and Low suggested that the exotic hadrons manifest themselves as poles of the P matrix, and not of the S matrix. Experimental P-matrix poles are determined reliably in both the meson–meson channels and nucleon–nucleon channels.
In April 2014, the LHCb collaboration confirmed the existence of the Z(4430)−, discovered by the Belle experiment, and demonstrated that it must have a minimal quark content of cd.
In July 2015, LHCb announced the discovery of two particles, named and , which must have minimal quark content cuud, making them .
+ List of exotic hadron candidates ! State !! Experiments !! Notes |
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