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Article: Linear collider makes a Z. (Z particle)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- April 22, 1989
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Linear collider makes a Z
The Stanford Linear Collider, a unique high-energy accelerator for probing the structure of matter, last week finally produced its first Z[deg.] particle. An electron moving at nearly the speed of light collided head-on with an equally fast positron, an electron's antimatter counterpart, to produce a Z[deg.] particle, which decayed almost immediately into a quark-antiquark pair. The Z[deg.] particle is one of three carriers of the weak nuclear force, which governs certain kinds of radioactive decay.
The feat marks the first time researchers have detected the decay of a Z[deg.] particle into quarks, which are thought to be the ...