Article Image

IPFS News Link • Energy

Particle Physics Discovery...

• http://www.techtimes.com, By Allan Adamson

Melting elementary particles such as quarks can produce amounts of energy so massive it is equivalent to 10 times that of nuclear fusion, researchers have reported.

Quarks

Quarks are the most basic building blocks of matter. The protons and neutrons that make up matter are composed of quarks. Unlike protons and electrons, which have charges of +1 and -1, however, quarks have fractional electric charge. Quarks that are joined together form composite particles called hadrons. Quarks come in six flavors namely: up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm.

Fusion Of Quarks Can Produce Massive Amount Of Energy

In a new study, researchers showed that two bottom quarks could theoretically fuse together in a powerful flash that can result in massive amount of energy that can spill out into the universe.

The fusion of two bottom quarks will produce 138 megaelectronvolts (MeV), which is eight times more powerful than individual nuclear fusion events inside a hydrogen bomb.