https://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/Welcome.html#ccus
https://cerncourier.com/a/lhcb-observes-four-new-tetraquarks...
Anyone know what the typical lag is between measurement and discovery for these kind of experiments? From reading between the lines, it seems to me that this discovery is based on re-analysis of the 2016 measurement data, but they don't mention the dates when the data was collected. I had expected the turnaround time to be in the order of months rather than years, e.g. 6-9 months to analyze experimental data, 6 months to prepare for publication, so let's say 1.5 years between experiment and claimed discovery. But this may be hopelessly naive, I don't have any comparable experience to rely on.
Also, what's the typical lifetime of these tetraquarks? None of these configurations are stable, so is it even accurate to call them "particles"?
Not really, not when they're this unstable. Traditionally hadrons that decay very quickly are called "resonances" instead.
The dividing line between a particle and a resonance is usually whether you quote its lifetime in seconds or MeV :) The two are directly related through the uncertainty relation, specifically the one coming from the energy-time commutator.