ELEMENTARY
PARTICLES
INTRODUCTION
In physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is
a particle that cannot be divided into other particles.
Elementary particles are the smallest known building blocks
of the universe.
Broadly classified into:
Fermions:Follows Pauli Exclusion principle and have spin
number of ½.
Bosons: Doesn’t follow Pauli Exclusion principle and have
integer values as spin number.
FERMION
QUARK
QUARK
Allquarks come in three colored charge forms; namely red,
blue and green.
Hadron are formed of quarks, antiquarks and gluons.
Baryonis composed of three quarks, which must be one
each of red, green, and blue colours.
Meson is made from one quark and one antiquark; the
quark can be of any colour, and the antiquark must have
the matching anti-colour.
1ST GENERATION QUARKS
1st Gen.
These are the only stable quarks.
In1964, Gell-Mann and Zweig made a model
comprising of up, down and strange quark, to
explain the particle zoo.
Proton >> 1 Down(−13 )+ 2 Up(2 x 23).
Neutron >> 2 Down(2 x −13) + 1 Up (23).
2 ND & 3RD GENERATION QUARKS
𝑢𝑑 𝑢𝑢𝑑 𝑢𝑠 𝑢𝑢𝑠
2nd Gen. 3rd Gen.
𝑢𝑑 𝑢𝑢𝑑 𝑢𝑑 𝑢𝑢𝑠
Only the first reaction is possible.
This led to the discovery of Strangeness.
Eachhave an unique corresponding
quantum number.
FERMION
LEPTON
LEPTONS
Unlike quarks, they can exist freely.
AllLeptons have a lepton number of +1 while antileptons have
lepton number of -1.
Can be classified on 2 basis.
Generation wise:
1st Generation: electron and electron neutrino.
2nd Generation: muon and muon neutrino.
3rd Generation: tau and tau neutrino.
Basis of charge:
Charged: electron, muon and tau.
Neutral: the neutrinos.
ELECTRON 1st Gen.
First elementary particle to be discovered.
Only charged lepton, that is stable.
It has an antiparticle called the Positron.
Has a mean lifetime of 6.6×1028 years.
MUON AND TAU
2nd Gen. 3rd Gen.
Muonsoriginate from the collisions of
cosmic-rays with the atoms in our
upper atmosphere.
About10,000 muons reach every
square meter of the earth's surface,
every minutes.
Tau is the heaviest lepton.
1st Gen. 2nd Gen. 3rd Gen.
NEUTRINOS
First
postulated in 1930 to account for the conservation of
momentum in certain subatomic reactions.
Anti-neutrinos were detected in 1955, before neutrinos.
Neutrinos
are believed to be responsible for changing the
balance between matter and antimatter.
Light takes 10,000 to 100,000 years to escape the thick plasma
of the sun’s core but neutrino takes only 2.3 sec.
BOSON
GAUGE/VECTOR
PHOTON
All
gauge bosons are associated with
one of the fundamental forces of
nature and so is Photon.
Photons do not have any rest mass.
Photons are responsible for the
electromagnetic interaction.
Photon is its own antiparticle.
GLUON
Italso has colour charges but is different from
that of the quarks.
It comes in 8 different colours.
It is the messenger particle for the Strong force.
Strongforce, and hence the gluons, are
responsible for binding the quarks together.
Antiparticle of a gluon is always a gluon, but with
a different coloured charge.
W AND Z BOSONS
TheZ Boson is neutral and is its own
antiparticle.
The𝑊 + and the 𝑊 − are the antiparticle
of each other.
They
mediate the Weak interaction,
which causes the radioactive decay.
BOSON
SCALER
HIGGS BOSON
Popularly known as the God Particle.
It
accounts for the Higgs Field, without which, all
particles would have been massless.
Ithelp in understanding the Cosmic Inflation of the
universe, that occurred a tiny fraction of second
after the Big Bang.
BOSON
HYPOTHETICAL
GRAVITON
It is a hypothetical massless particle theorised to have a spin
value of 2. It is likely to be stable and neutrally charged.
Since three of the four fundamental forces is associated with a
Boson, it is believed that the fourth fundamental force, that is
gravitational force, should also have a boson that mediates it.
There are many other predicted fundamental particles like, X
and Y bosons, Sterile neutrinos, axion, etc; but have not yet
been detected.
REFERENCES
https://stfc.ukri.org/research/particle-physics-and-particle-astrophysics/peter-
higgs-a-truly-british-scientist/why-is-the-higgs-discovery-so-significant/
https://physics.info/standard/
https://home.cern/science/physics/standard-model
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-a-neutrino/
https://news.fnal.gov/2014/11/nine-weird-facts-about-neutrinos/
https://www.britannica.com/science/strong-force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_and_Z_bosons
Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick & Walker
DONE BY
DIPAL ROY
18EE02009
