Sea quark surprise reveals deeper complexity in proton spin puzzle
Friday, March 15, 2019 - 10:50
in Astronomy & Space
New data from the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) add detail -- and complexity -- to an intriguing puzzle that scientists have been seeking to solve: how the building blocks that make up a proton contribute to its spin. The results reveal that different 'flavors' of antiquarks contribute differently to the proton's overall spin -- and in a way that's opposite to those flavors' relative abundance.