A. Mangalasseri

In proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, physicists have for the first time caught a particle with two charm quarks. It is called Ξcc+ (pronounced "ksi-ksi-plus") and resembles a bead with not one but two heavy nuclei.

In the LHCb detector, where protons collide, one unusual track was found among billions of decays. The particle, named $$D_{s1}$$(2933)^+, appears for a moment and immediately decays into other particles. Its lifetime is so short that it cannot be observed directly — only through its decay products can its existence be reconstructed.

At the Large Hadron Collider, protons are smashed together, and among the debris, a heavyweight particle, the lambda baryon, sometimes appears. It lives for a tiny fraction of a second before decaying into other particles.