Scientists found a particle that appears to be made entirely of 'pure force' with zero actual matter inside.
arXiv · March 17, 2026 · 2603.13764
The Takeaway
Most particles are made of quarks, but 'glueballs' are theoretical clumps made only of gluons—the particles that carry the strong nuclear force. A new analysis of atomic collisions provides strong evidence that a known particle called f0(1500) is actually this exotic, matter-free state of energy.
From the abstract
We propose a new nonet scheme for scalar mesons consisting of $f_{0}(980)$, $a_{0}(980)$, $K_{0}^{\ast}(1430)$, and $f_{0}(1770)$, regarding them as quark-antiquark $P$-wave states classified by $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ light flavor symmetry. We investigate their production in relativistic heavy ion collisions, and estimate their yields by applying the statistical model and the quark coalescence model. In contrast to these scalar mesons, we regard $f_{0}(1500)$ as a glueball that is not included in the