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Concept
Xi baryon
Summary
The Xi baryons or cascade particles are a family of subatomic hadron particles which have the symbol Ξ and may have an electric charge (Q) of +2 e, +1 e, 0, or −1 e, where e is the elementary charge.
Like all conventional baryons, Ξ particles contain three quarks. Ξ baryons, in particular, contain either one up or one down quark and two other, more massive quarks. The two more massive quarks are any two of strange, charm, or bottom (doubles allowed). For notation, the assumption is that the two heavy quarks in the Ξ are both strange; subscripts "c" and "b" are added for each even heavier charm or bottom quark that replaces one of the two presumed strange quarks.
They are historically called the cascade particles because of their unstable state; they are typically observed to decay rapidly into lighter particles, through a chain of decays (cascading decays). The first discovery of a charged Xi baryon was in cosmic ray experiments by the Manchester group in 1952. The first discovery of the neutral Xi particle was at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1959. It was also observed as a daughter product from the decay of the omega baryon (_Omega-) observed at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1964. The Xi spectrum is important to nonperturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD), such as lattice QCD.
The _Bottom Xi- particle is also known as the cascade B particle and contains quarks from all three families. It was discovered by D0 and CDF experiments at Fermilab. The discovery was announced on 12 June 2007. It was the first known particle made of quarks from all three quark generations – namely, a down quark, a strange quark, and a bottom quark. The D0 and CDF collaborations reported the consistent masses of the new state. The Particle Data Group world average mass is 5.7924GeV/c2.
For notation, the assumption is that the two heavy quarks are both strange, denoted by a simple Ξ ; a subscript "c" is added for each constituent charm quark, and a "b" for each bottom quark. Hence Ξ_c, Ξ_b, Ξ_cc, Ξ_cb, etc.
Official source
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