Pentaquark in the context of "Baryon number"

In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong nuclear force. Pronounced /ˈhædrɒn/ , the name is derived from Ancient Greek ἁδρός (hadrós) 'stout, thick'. They are analogous to molecules, which are held together by the electric force. Most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from two hadrons: the proton and the neutron, while most of the mass of the protons and neutrons is in turn due to the binding energy of their constituent quarks, due to the strong force.

Hadrons are categorized into two broad families: baryons, made of an odd number of quarks (usually three), and mesons, made of an even number of quarks (usually two: one quark and one antiquark). Protons and neutrons (which make the majority of the mass of an atom) are examples of baryons; pions are an example of a meson. A tetraquark state (an exotic meson), named the Z(4430), was discovered in 2007 by the Belle Collaboration and confirmed as a resonance in 2014 by the LHCb collaboration. Two pentaquark states (exotic baryons), named P
_c(4380) and P
_c(4450), were discovered in 2015 by the LHCb collaboration. There are several other "Exotic" hadron candidates and other colour-singlet quark combinations that may also exist.

Exotic hadrons are subatomic particles composed of quarks and gluons, but which – unlike "well-known" hadrons such as protons, neutrons and mesons – consist of more than three valence quarks. By contrast, "ordinary" hadrons contain just two or three quarks. Hadrons with explicit valence gluon content would also be considered exotic. In theory, there is no limit on the number of quarks in a hadron, as long as the hadron's color charge is white, or color-neutral.

Consistent with ordinary hadrons, exotic hadrons are classified as being either fermions, like ordinary baryons, or bosons, like ordinary mesons. According to this classification scheme, pentaquarks, containing five valence quarks, are exotic baryons, while tetraquarks (four valence quarks) and hexaquarks (six quarks, consisting of either a dibaryon or three quark-antiquark pairs) would be considered exotic mesons. Tetraquark and pentaquark particles are believed to have been observed and are being investigated; hexaquarks have not yet been confirmed as observed.

In particle physics, exotic baryons are a type of hadron (bound states of quarks and gluons) with half-integer spin, but with a quark content different from the three quarks (qqq) present in conventional baryons. An example would be pentaquarks, consisting of four quarks and one antiquark (qqqqq̅).

So far, the only observed exotic baryons are the pentaquarks P_c(4380), P_c(4450) discovered in 2015, P_c(4312) in 2019 and P
_ψs(4338) in 2022 by the LHCb collaboration.