Elusive romance of top-quark matter/antimatter pairs observed and confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider

Amazing stuff! When physicists become romantics! We are all human, all too human! (pardon my possible abuse of Friedrich Nietzsche) 😊

So under some special circumstances matter and antimatter do not annihilate each other instantly?

"An unforeseen feature in proton-proton collisions previously observed by the CMS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has now been confirmed by its sister experiment, ATLAS. The result, reported yesterday at the European Physical Society’s High-Energy Physics conference in Marseille, suggests that top quarks—the heaviest and shortest-lived of all the elementary particles—can momentarily pair up with their antimatter counterparts to produce a “quasi-bound-state” called toponium. Further input based on complex theoretical calculations of the strong nuclear force—called quantum chromodynamics (QCD)—will enable physicists to understand the true nature of this elusive dance. ..."

Elusive romance of top-quark pairs observed at the LHC | symmetry magazine "The CMS and ATLAS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have observed an unforeseen feature in the behaviour of top quarks that suggests that these heaviest of all elementary particles form a fleeting union."

Elusive romance of top-quark pairs observed at the LHC (original press release by CERN)