All articles tagged with #baryons
By localizing 69 fast radio bursts with known host distances, scientists infer that about 76% of ordinary matter resides in diffuse intergalactic gas, roughly 15% in extended galactic halos, and 9% in stars and cold gas; these fractions are model-dependent with uncertainties, but represent the clearest baryon census to date and suggest most ordinary matter sits outside galaxies.
Using thousands of fast radio burst measurements, researchers mapped where ordinary (baryonic) matter resides and found widespread, diffuse gas surrounding galaxies and galaxy clusters. This diffuse gas accounts for the universe’s missing baryons, extending up to about 4 million light-years from galaxies and suggesting energetic processes like black hole jets fling baryons far beyond visible halos, which helps reconcile observations with current astrophysical models.
Astronomers used fast radio bursts to measure the density of ordinary matter in the universe and found most of it lies outside galaxy halos in the diffuse intergalactic medium, solving the long-standing missing-baryons puzzle and aiding precision cosmology for future telescopes like Roman and Euclid.
Astronomers stacked millions of galaxies and used the cosmic microwave background as a backlight to detect very diffuse ionized hydrogen gas around mature galaxies via the kinematic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect, suggesting the universe’s missing ordinary matter is out there and may trace the cosmic web; if confirmed, this finding could reshape understanding of galactic feedback but awaits peer review.
Scientists at CERN's LHCb have identified a new baryon, Xi-cc-plus, composed of two charm quarks and one down quark. Weighing about four times the mass of a proton, it offers a testbed for quantum chromodynamics and the strong force; discovered after 2023 detector upgrades, it is only the second observed baryon with two heavy quarks and has a lifetime up to six times shorter than a similar earlier baryon.
A new discovery at Cern's LHCb experiment reveals differences in the decay rates of matter baryons and their antimatter counterparts, providing insights into why the universe is dominated by matter and not antimatter, and hinting at potential new physics beyond the standard model.
Astronomers used fast radio bursts to map and locate the universe's missing ordinary matter, revealing that about 76% of cosmic matter exists as hot, low-density gas between galaxies, helping to solve the decades-old missing baryon problem.