What is the world made of?
From SJS Wiki
What is the World Made of?
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Everything in the world is made of quarks and leptons.
- For every particle, there is an antiparticle
- Antiparticles are exactly like their corresponding particles but with an opposite charge
- The symbol for an antiparticle is the symbol for the particle with a bar over it
- Ex. The “up antiquark” is designated by u-bar
- Quarks
- Form protons and neutrons
- 3 different pairs
- up/down
- charm/strange
- top/bottom
- every quark has a corresponding antiquark
- quarks have fractional electrical charges (1/3 or 2/3)
- quarks have color charges
- Hadrons
- quarks only exist in groups, called Hadrons
- hadrons have integer electrical charges formed by the sum of the fractional charges of quarks
- no net color charge
- two classes of hadrons:
- Baryons
- Made of 3 quarks
- Ex. Proton = 2 up quarks + 1 down quark (uud)
- Ex. Neutron = 1 up quarks + 2 down quark (udd)
- Made of 3 quarks
- Mesons
- Made of 1 quark and 1 antiquark
- Very unstable
- Ex. Pion ( +) = an up quark and a down anitiquark
- Ex. Antipion ( -) = a down quark and an up antiquark
- Baryons
- Leptons
- point-like particles without internal structure
- six leptons
- three have electrical charge
- electron (e-) (less mass)
- muon( ) (more mass)
- tau( ) (more mass)
- three do not
- Neutrinos (v) – very little mass
- Every leptons has an antilepton
- Ex. Anti-electron = positron</ul></ul>
- Divided into 3 lepton families
- Electron and its neutrino
- Muon and its neutrino
- Tau and its neutrino
- use the terms "electron number," "muon number," and "tau number" to refer to the lepton family of a particle
- electrons and their neutrinos = +1
- positrons and their antineutrinos = -1
- all other particles = 0
- must be conserved in decay
- Lepton Decays
- More massive ones (muon and tau) are very unstable and quickly decay
- Always decays into corresponding neutrino and a particle and its antiparticle
- Number of members in each family must remain constant in decay
- electron number, muon number, and tau number are always conserved when a massive lepton decays into smaller ones
- Neutrinos
- A type of lepton
- No charge
- Almost never interact with other particles
- Produced through particle decays
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- three have electrical charge