Inside each proton or neutron there are three quarks bound by gluons. Until now, it has often been assumed that two of them form a "stable" pair known as a diquark. It seems, however, that it's the ...

Scientists are dreaming up ways to probe the nature of the Universe’s smallest bits—quarks—by observing ultra-dense neutron stars slamming into each other. Particle colliders in Switzerland and on ...

A team of physicists say they have created the first coherent picture of atomic nuclei from their composite particles, quarks and gluons. The 20th century was a pretty busy hundred years for particle ...

In the world of nuclear physics, protons often take the spotlight. But now, for the first time, the neutron has stepped into it. A recent experiment using the U.S. Department of Energy’s Jefferson Lab ...

Probing ever deeper into the inner world of the atom, nuclear physicists have uncovered an increasingly baffling collection of tiny particles. Besides the familiar neutrons, electrons and protons, ...

Illustration of the new method: the researchers use five-dimensional black holes (right) to calculate the phase diagram of strongly coupled matter (middle), enabling simulations of neutron star ...

New theoretical analysis places the likelihood of massive neutron stars hiding cores of deconfined quark matter between 80 and 90 percent. The result was reached through massive supercomputer runs ...

The goal of the activity is to build a carbon atom out of elementary particles (up quarks, down quarks, and electrons). On the left side of the activity's window sits the particle dispenser. Dragging ...