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Elementary Particles

Elementary Particles

Elementary Particles
The term elementary particles signify the particles of structureless and those can
not be constructed from other particles.
Present model of the constituents of matter is that they consist of fundamental
point like, on a scale of 10
-17
m, spin fermions- the quarks with fractional
electric charge and the leptons carrying zero or integral electric charge. Hence
there are two types of fundamental fermions, called quarks and leptons, which
are structuresless and point like.
One of the important modern ideas of forces is that forces between particles
arise from the exchange of particles.


Classification of Elementary Particles

The elementary particles are classified in terms of their mass, intrinsic spin,
magnetic moment and interaction properties.
The following table represents the list of such particles:

Elementary Particles
Hadrons (Quarks)
Baryon

Photon

Leptons Mesons
Nucleon Hyperons


Photon

Photon
The first member of elementary particles is gamma ray photons, which is an
electromagnetic quantum.
These particles take part in electromagnetic interactions.
They have zero rest mass and zero spin.
They are bosons.




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Leptons

Leptons
The second category of elementary particles is called lepton, which consists of
light particles.
They take part in electromagnetic and weak interactions and
They have half-odd integral spins.
They are fermions
Types of leptons
There are two types of leptons:
(a) Charged, and (b) Neutral.
Charged leptons
The charged leptons are electron, -meson or muon, and -lepton. These leptons
occur in doublet that is positively and negatively charged.
Neutral leptons
The neutral leptons are known as neutrinos. They are neutral particles having
zero rest mass.
There are three types of neutrinos associated with each type of lepton and
correspondingly called e-neutrino and -neutrino -neutrino.
Electron
Electrons are leptons, which are negatively charged stable particles. Their mass
is about 5.48 x 10
-4
amu.
Muon
Muons are leptons, which are also negatively charged particles but heavier than
electrons. Their mass is 207 times mass of electrons. They are characterized by
life of the order of 10
-6
sec.
Neutrinos
-lepton was first observed in accelerator experiments in 1974.

Hadrons

Hadrons
These are the strongly interacting heavy particles.
Types of Hadrons
They are classified into two types: Mesons and Baryons.
Mesons
These are particles heavier than electrons and lighter than nucleons. Their mass
lies between 250 and 1000 times mass of the electrons.
These particles have strong interaction with nuclear matter
They are particles of nuclear field.
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They have zero intrinsic spin,
They are bosons.
Types of Mesons
Mesons are divided into three groups: -Meson (pion), k-meson (kaon), and -
meson.
-Mesons
-Mesons are found to have three states of charge:
(a) Positive,
+
, (b) Negative,

and (c) Neutral,

0
.
Positive -meson has mass of 275 times mass of electrons and life of about 10
-2

sec.
Neutral -meson has mass of 264 times mass of the electron.
Neutral
0
mesons are produced in the collision of protons having Kinetic
energy 150 MeV. Similarly, in photoproduction of energetic gamma quanta,
+
mesons are produced.
K-Mesons
K-Mesons are found to be in three charge states:
(a) Positive, k
+
, (b) Negative, k

, and (c) Neutral, k

0

Positive k-meson has mass 966 times of the electronic mass. And that neutral k-
mesons have 967 times electronic mass.

Baryons

Baryons
These are heavy particles. Their intrinsic spin is odd-half integer spin. Baryons
are further grouped into two classes: (a) nucleon, and (b) hyperons.
Nucleons are constituent particles of the nucleus of an atom. They are protons
and neutrons. Protons and neutrons have nearly equal mass. But protons are
positively charged and neutrons are neutral.

Hyperons

Hyperons
Hyperons are the particles heavier than nucleons. They are characterized by
their lifetime, which has the order of 10
-10
sec. The hyperons have strange
behavior that they decay faster than are formed.
Types of hyperons
There are four types of hyperons:
-hyperon, -hyperons, -hyperons and -hyperons.
-hyperons are neutral particles and so are represented as
0
-hyperons exist in three charge states
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(a)
+
, (b)

, and
0
,
-hyperon in two charge states:
(a) Positive
+
, and (b) Negative

-hyperon exits in only one charge state

.

Resonances
In addition to particles listed above, a great number of strongly interacting short-
lived particles, called resonances, has been discovered. These particles are
resonance states of two or more elementary particles. The lifetime of resonances
is only about 10
-23
to 10
-22
sec. Some of resonances are bosons and must be
included in the class of mesons. Others are fermions and must be included in the
class of hyperons.

Antiparticles

Antiparticles
Antiparticle of a particle is the particle having the same mass but of opposite
charge. When the particle and its antiparticle come in contact they annihilate
each other with the emission of photons. All the particles have their antiparticle.
Positron is the first discovered antiparticle of electron. The antiproton is
discovered by Segre, Chamberlain and other in the collision of high energy
protons.
The antiparticle of neutron, the antineutron, was discovered in 1956 by Cork,
Lamberton and Wengel.
Neutrino and antineutrino are distinguished by their spins. Neutrino spins
counterclockwise while antineutrino clockwise.

Quarks

Quarks
Hadrons are built up from a limited number of fundamental units, which have
acquired the name quarks. These fundamental units have unusual properties that
they carry fractional electric charge.
Types of quarks
The original theory postulated three quarks, which are labeled u-, d- and s,
which stand for up, down and strange. We refer to these labels as flavors of
quarks.
The quarks have a spin quantum number of and
They have baryon number of 1/3.
Hence, quarks are fermions.
Charge, strangeness and baryon number for these quarks are as follows:

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Quark Electric Charge Strangeness Baryon Number
u-quark +2/3 0 1/3
d-quark 1/3 0 1/3
s-quark 1/3 1 1/3

Each quark has an anti-quark associated with it ( s d u , , ). The magnitude of
charge and baryon number for the anti-quarks has the same magnitude as those
the quarks, but the sign is reversed.

Composition of hadrons according to the quark model

Composition of hadrons according to the quark model
A baryon is made up of three quarks. For example, the proton is made up of two
u-quarks and a d-quark (uud) so that,
Hadrons Total charge Baryon number Strangene
ss
Quark
combination
proton 2/3 + 2/3 + (1/3) =
1
1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3
= 1
0 + 0 + 0
= 0
uud Baryo
n
neutron 2/3 + (1/3) + (1/3)
= 0
1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3
= 1
0 + 0 + 0
= 0
udd



A meson is made up of a quark and an anti-quark. For example, the
+
-meson is
the combination of a u-quark and a d-antiquark (ud),
- -
-meson is the
combination of a u-antiquark and a d-quark (ud). K
+
has quark combination (us)
and K
-
has (us).


Coloured Quarks

It is believed that
-
-hyperon is composed of three identical s-quarks (sss). So,
there is a problem with this quark model, because it violates the Pauli Exclusion
Principle that prohibits two or more fermions from occupying identical quantum
states. Similarly, the proton, neutron, and others with two identical quarks would
violate this principle also. To resolve this difficulty, a new property is assigned to
the quarks, which can be regarded as new quantum number. The new quantum
number is called colour. There are three colours labeled Red (R), Blue (B), and
Green (G), which distinguish three identical quarks.

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Charm Bottom and Top Quarks

Charm, Bottom and Top Quarks
Charmed quarks (c-quarks) are the quarks having charge of +2/3 strangeness 0
and a new quantum number, charmed quantum number, +1. Others quarks have 0
charm.
In 1977, a new particle was discovered at Fermi lab that is called -meson. This
particle is supposed to be made of new quark called bottom quark (b-quark).
Following table summarizes the properties of quarks:

Generation Quark Symbol Charge Strangeness Charm
Up
Down
u
d
+2/3
1/3
0
0
0
0
Charm
Strange
c
s
+2/3
1/3
0
1
+1
0
I

II

III
Top
Bottom
t
b
+2/3
1/3
0
0
0
0


Gluon

Gluon
Since quarks are fundamental particles, strong interaction is the interaction that
exists between the quarks. The field quanta of strong interactions are called
gluon, which like quark has colour. The fundamental coupling for the strong is
then between quarks and gluons and quark-quark interaction proceeds through
the exchange of a intermediate gluon. The gluons have zero mass.

Conclusion
Above discussion shows that our present model of the constituents of matter is
that they consist of fundamental point like, on a scale of 10
-17
m, spin fermions-
the quarks with fractional electric charge (+2/3e, -1/3e) and the leptons carrying
integral electric charge. Hence there are two types of fundamental fermions, called
quarks and leptons, which are structuresless and point like.