Particle caught flip-flopping

D meson’s switch between matter and antimatter could help uncover new particles

A particle with an identity crisis could provide the next big discovery at the world’s largest particle accelerator. The D meson has been caught in the act of flipping between matter and antimatter, researchers report online March 5 in Physical Review Letters.

D mesons, like other mesons, are short-lived particles that emerge from the shrapnel of proton collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva.