US physicists discover new elementary particle

New York: A team of US researchers detected a new form of elementary particle called the "four-flavoured" tetraquark that can affect scientists' understanding of "quark matter"- the hot, dense material that existed moments after the Big Bang and may still exist in the super-dense interior of neutron stars.

For most of the history of quarks, it's seemed that all particles were made of either a quark and an antiquark or three quarks, “This new particle is unique, a strange, charged beauty. It's the birth of a new paradigm. Particles made of four quarks- specifically, two quarks and two antiquarks is a big change in our view of elementary particles,” said Indiana University physicist Daria Zieminska.

Quarks are the building blocks that form subatomic particles, the most familiar of which are protons and neutrons - each composed of three quarks. There are six types, or "flavours," of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top. Each of these also has an antimatter counterpart.