STAR collaboration finds proton's 'glue' may carry baryon number

The STAR collaboration at RHIC in Brookhaven found that baryon number in protons may be carried by a Y-shaped gluon node rather than three valence quarks. Published in Science, the result could overturn a long-held textbook assumption if confirmed.

• Baryon number may be carried by a Y-shaped gluon node, not quarks
• Hypothesis proposed by Dmitri Kharzeev in 1996, 4 years before RHIC start
• Data collected at the STAR detector in particle collisions at RHIC
• Result explains conservation of proton and neutron numbers since Big Bang