Pentaquark Hunt by Applying Neutral Track Over-constraint Method

ongoing

Pentaquarks, recently discovered in LHCb at CERN became one of the most important discoveries of the last century. Quarks combine in threes to make up protons and neutrons, a quark and an antiquark form a meson. It was long hypothesized that other multiquark states should exist in Nature, among those - tetraquarks, made of four quarks, and pentaquarks - made of five quarks. Only in 2015 the LHCb experiment yielded a discovery of such states. Because of the complexity of Quantum Chromodynamics, theoretical predictions are very difficult to make. Input from the experiment is needed to steer the field toward understanding the interactions between quarks mediated by the strong force. During this project, the data analysis will be carried out using the latest and most extensive LHCb data set. It will be focused on a new and unstudied channel where pentaquarks are predicted to appear. Novel methods of particle reconstruction and reproducible analysis techniques will be employed which enable an analysis of a much larger scale and complexity. A kinematic over-constraint method called Extended Cone Closure, which was developed by myself will be used to look for pentaquarks in a channel inaccessible before. With the new Run3 LHCb dataset, improved particle identification efficiency and higher luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider, PHANTOM promises to provide much-needed input to the theory community. The results of this pentaquark search will be published in high-impact journals such as Nature Physics. The methods used in this analysis will be made available to the scientific community. Many aspects of such data analysis can be used in other fields of Physics and neighbouring fields of science. This will ensure the extensive transfer of knowledge between myself and the host institute - Vilnius University. A vast infrastructure is available in Vilnius to undertake such a project.