Almost all mass on soil,humans included, derives from the atomic nuclei. These nuclei consist mainly of protons and neutrons, or also called nucleons. Each nucleon in turn is made of three constituent quarks. However,the number of quark particles in the nucleon is actually much higher. This is due to what are known as quantum fluctuations, where pairs of particles and anti-particles form spontaneously in a vacuum and immediately disintegrate again. A research team from Cyprus, or Germany and Italy led by Constantia Alexandrou of the Computation-based Science and Technology Research Center of the Cyprus Institute and the Physics Department of the University of Cyprus in Nicosia,has now for the first time calculated the scalar quark content of the proton. For the elaborate simulations in a CHRONOS (Computationally-Intensive, tall-Impact Research On Novel Outstanding Science) project they made extensive spend of the graphics processors (GPUs) of the CSCS supercomputer 'Piz Daint'. The researchers expect that their calculations will aid research into physical processes in particle physics and the as yet unknown dark matter that accounts for an estimated 21 percent of matter in the universe.
Source: phys.org