What is "pentaquark"

n. (context particle English) A hypothetical subatomic particle consisting of a group of five quarks (compared to three quarks in normal baryons and two in mesons), or more specifically four quarks and one anti-quark and is represented by Θ.

A pentaquark is a subatomic particle consisting of four quarks and one antiquark bound together.

As quarks have a baryon number of +, and antiquarks of −, the pentaquark would have a total baryon number of 1, and thus would be a baryon. Further, because it has five quarks instead of the usual three found in regular baryons (aka 'triquarks'), it would be classified as an exotic baryon. The name pentaquark was coined by Claude Gignoux et al. and Harry J. Lipkin in 1987; however, the possibility of five-quark particles was identified as early as 1964 when Murray Gell-Mann first postulated the existence of quarks. Although predicted for decades, pentaquarks have proved surprisingly difficult to discover and some physicists were beginning to suspect that an unknown law of nature prevented their production.

The first claim of pentaquark discovery was recorded at LEPS in Japan in 2003, and several experiments in the mid-2000s also reported discoveries of other pentaquark states. Others were not able to replicate the LEPS results, however, and the other pentaquark discoveries were not accepted because of poor data and statistical analysis. On 13 July 2015, the LHCb collaboration at CERN reported results consistent with pentaquark states in the decay of bottom Lambda baryons .

Outside of particle physics laboratories pentaquarks also could be produced naturally by supernovae as part of the process of forming a neutron star. The scientific study of pentaquarks might offer insights into how these stars form, as well as allowing more thorough study of particle interactions and the strong force.