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by im3w1l 1783 days ago
Despite free neutrons decaying in 800s, there are many stable elements containing neutrons. Would it be possible to imagine a tetraquark as an ingredient of a stable particle?
1 comments

No. The presence of a valence antiquark guarantees it will decay at some point.
That’s not the full explanation; the antiproton is stable (or, is as stable as the proton).

It’s that the net baryon number is 0 and that the flavor ‘quantum numbers’ aren’t conserved by the weak force. If you could turn off the weak force, this cc ubar dbar tetraquark would be absolutely stable.