Subatomic Particles

Introduction / The Basics

• Divided into two types, elementary particles (single particles not composed of any
other particle) and composite particles (composed of two or more elementary
particles)
• Particle physics is the study of how these particles interact with one another.
Supercolliders and other means of producing and collecting particles for study are
fields of Particle Physics
• Elementary Particles: In the standard model they include quarks, leptons, and
gauge bosons.
• Composite Particles: Include all hadrons (group of particles comprised baryons
and mesons, these particles include the proton, neutron, etc.
• The way scientists analyze particles today is through statists governed by
principles such as wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle
• In order to analyze such particles, high energy is required and thus these particles
are generally found in cosmic rays or through the use of particle accelerators
• All particles have an antiparticle has the same mass as a particle but with the
opposite electric charge (Note* all particles discussed in guide have a
corresponding antiparticle therefore if there are 12 fermions mentioned in the
guide there are really 24)
• Standard Model:

Fermions: Group of particles that comprises of Quarks and Leptons

• There are 12 of them (6 quarks and 6 leptons)
• These particles have half-integer spin values
• They obey Fermi-Dirac statistics: Describe the energy states of particles obeying
the Pauli Exclusion principle
• Obey Pauli Exclusion Principle: No two identical fermions can occupy the same
quantum state (quantum numbers) at the same time.
o Quantum numbers: n, l, ml, and ms (principle quantum number: energy
level, angular momentum (gives shape of orbital), magnetic quantum
number, spin)

Quarks
• Combine to form hadrons (composite particles)
• Six types called flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom
• Up and down quarks are least massive and most common
• Model for them proposed independently by Murray Gell-Mann and
George Zweig
• Gell-Mann formed a method of classifying them called the
eightfold way
• Named for the sound ducks make and then spelled
according to the word found in James Joyce’s Finnegans
Wake
 • Only particles in Standard Model to experience all four
fundamental forces
• Possess color charge that allows them to interact with the strong
force
• Values for color charge for quarks include red, green, and
blue
• Part of the Quantum Chromodynamics theory: Particle
theory relating to the strong interaction
• Possess intrinsic properties such as electric charge, color charge,
spin, and mass
• The top quark is the most massive of all elementary particles that
have so far been observed with a mass of 173 GeV/c^2

Leptons
• Although they are fermions just like quarks, they are not subject to all
four fundamental forces. Instead they are subject to all but the strong
interaction because they do not possess color charge.
• Leptons are classified into three generations that consist of a total of 6
flavors
o 1st Generation: Electronic leptons, consist of electron and
electron neutrino
o 2nd Generation: Muonic leptons, consist of muons and muon
neutrinos
o 3rd Generation: Tauonic leptons, consist of tauons and tauon
neutrinos
• Their name comes from the Greek for “light (as in not heavy” or
“thin”

Muon (sometimes referred to as mu mesons)

• Discovered by Carl Anderson while he was working with
cosmic radiation
• Particles with second longest lifetime behind the neutron
• 200 times the mass of electrons
• Only produced through cosmic rays

Tauon