In their study, the CMS researchers looked through data from proton–proton collisions collected at the LHC at an energy of 13 TeV to search for instances, or “events”, in which such mediator particles and associated emerging jets might occur. In total, there would be two jets of regular hadrons originating from the collision point, and two “emerging” jets that would emerge a distance away from the collision point because dark hadrons would take some time to decay into visible particles. If such mediator particles were produced in pairs in a proton–proton collision, each mediator particle of the pair would transform into a normal quark and a dark quark, both of which would produce a spray, or “jet”, of particles called hadrons, composed of quarks or dark quarks. It does so by invoking the existence of dark quarks that interact with ordinary quarks via a mediator particle. One compelling theory extends the Standard Model to explain why the observed mass densities of normal matter and dark matter are similar. Although the search came up empty-handed, it allowed the team to inch closer to the parent particles from which dark quarks may originate. In a recent study, the CMS collaboration describes how it has sifted through data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to try and spot dark quarks. If that’s not mind-boggling enough, enter dark quarks – hypothetical particles that have been proposed to explain dark matter, an invisible form of matter that fills the universe and holds the Milky Way and other galaxies together.
In fact, according to the Standard Model of particle physics, which describes all known particles and their interactions, quarks should be infinitely small. Quarks are the smallest particles that we know of.