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Assignment No. 1
Kashif Ur Rehman Malik
BS Physics
6th Semester
Elementary Particles and Their Classification
Phy 17-40
Submitted to: Prof. Faiz Alam
G.P.G.C No. 1 Abbottabad
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Elementary Particles
• Elementary particles – are fundamental particles that have no internal
structure, they are the “building blocks” of everything, just as we think
of elements as “building blocks” of molecules
Classification of Particles
We can classify all types of particles according to their spin: (spin is a
characteristic property of elemental particles; just as charge is):
Fermions:
• Have half-integer spin, i.e. a multiple of
• Can be a elementary or composite particle (composite particles
are made up of a number of elementary particles)
• All known fermions are Dirac fermions, that is for every particle
there is a distinct anti-particle (a particle with certain opposite
properties such as charge)
• Fermions are the basic “building blocks” of matter– they make up
protons and neutrons and include electrons which together is the
composition of atoms.
• 12 types of fermions (ignoring anti-particles), 6 quarks and 6
leptons
• Fermions – 2 Separate types of Elemental Fermion:
Quarks (6 types and 6 corresponding anti particles)
Leptons (6 types and 6 corresponding anti particles)
Boson:
• Have integer spin 1,2……..
• The fundamental forces of nature (electromagnetism, strong and
weak interaction and gravitation) are called gauge bosons
• Can be a elementary or composite particle (composite
particles are made up of a number of elementary particles)
• Bosons – 1 type of Elemental Boson:
There are 6 elemental bosons and they are just referred to as
bosons
The fundamental forces of nature (electromagnetism, strong and
weak interaction and gravitation) are mediated by a special group
of elemental bosons referred to as gauge bosons.
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Fermions
• Made up of 6 leptons and 6 quarks (and their corresponding
antiparticle).
Leptons:
• Leptons are fundamental particles with no internal structure
• They are not affected by the strong interaction
• Have half integer spin
• The leptons respective antiparticles are the antileptons which are
identical expect for the fact they carry the opposite electrical charge
and opposite lepton number.
• There are 6 leptons in total, the three charged leptons are called
electron-like leptons while the neutral leptons are called neutrinos
• The leptons and some characteristic properties:
Particle Symbol Charge Mass Lepton Lepton Lepton Lepton
(In terms of (In terms Number Electron Muon Tau
elemental of the
charge) electron) Number Number Number
Electron e -1 1 +1 +1 0 0
Electron Ve 0 Near +1 +1 0 0
Neutrino Zero
Muon µ -1 207 +1 0 +1 0
Muon Vµ 0 Near +1 0 +1 0
Neutrino Zero
Tau -1 3500 +1 0 0 +1
Tau V 0 Near +1 0 0 +1
Neutrino Zero
Note: All neutrinos have no charge, and all other leptons have charge of -1
(relative to e).
Although a table of lepton number will be given in the exam remember that all
leptons have a lepton number of +1 and all anti-leptons have a lepton number
of -1, the electron and the electron neutrino have an electron lepton number
of +1 while their anti-particle counter-parts have an electron number of 1 (this
also applies in the same way the muon and tau lepton number).
Quarks:
• The building blocks of all hadrons (composite particles– ones made out
of a combination of fundamental)
• Have half-integer spin
• Quarks can never be found by themselves due to color confinement
(based upon another characteristic property: color)
• The quarks and some characteristic properties:
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Name Symbol Anti-‐ Charge Mass Baryon Strangeness
Particle (In terms of (MeV/c2) Number
elemental
charge)
Up u +2/3 1.5-3.3 +1\3 0
Down d -1\3 3.4-6.0 + 1\3 0
Charm c +2\3 1160- +1\3 0
1340
Strange s -1\3 70-130 + 1\3 -1(+1 for )
Top t +2\3 169100- + 1\3 0
173330
Bottom b -1\3 4130-4370 + 1\3 0
• All of the associated anti-quarks have opposite charge, baryon number
and strangeness
• Up and down quarks have the lowest masses and the other quarks
rapidly change into up and down quarks.
Bosons:
• Mediator particles (ones that are exchange particles for the
fundamental forces of nature) are called gauge bosons
• The bosons and some characteristic properties:
Particle Symbol Anti-‐ Particle Charge Interaction Existence
(In terms of Mediated
elemental
charge)
Photon Self 0 Electromagnetic Confirmed
(Virtual Photon)
W Boson W- +1/3 -1( W + +1) Weak Confirmed
Interaction
Z Boson Z Self 0 Weak Confirmed
Interactions
Higgs H0 Self 0 None Unconfirmed
Boson
Gluon g Self 0 Strong Confirmed
Interaction
Graviton G Self 0 Gravitation Unconfirmed
Note: Only boson to have an antiparticle is the W boson.
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Composite Particles:
Composite particles are particles that are made out of other elemental
particles bound together; protons and neutrons are composite particles as
are atoms and even molecules.
Hadrons:
Hadrons are strong interacting composite particles
Hadrons are either:
Composite fermions (half integer spin), these are called baryons.
Composite bosons (integer spin), these are called mesons.
All known hadrons are composed of quarks and antiquarks.
Baryons (fermions):
Baryons have half integer spin
They are made up of three quarks(held together by the strong
force)
Anti-Baryons are made up of the anti-particle partners of the
respective quarks in the normal baryon.
As every quark has a baryon number of + , any baryon has
baryon number of +1 ( as baryon is made up of three quarks ),
Likewise an anti-quark has a baryon number of , therefor an
anti-baryon has a baryon number of 1 (as made up of 3 anti-quarks).
A Proton – has 2 up quarks and a down quark shown by “uud”.
A Neutron – has 2 down quarks and an up quark “udd”.
An Anti-Proton – has 2 anti-up quarks and one anti-down
quark “ ”.
The proton is the only stable baryon, even a free neutron (outside an
nucleus) decays into a proton releasing an electron and an electron anti-
neutrino as in –β.
Mesons (bosons):
Mesons have integer spin and are therefore bosons
There are made up of more than one elemental particles and are
therefore composite bosons
Mesons are made up of one quark and one anti-‐quark
The family of mesons with spin=0 can be represented in a none
seen to the right
The K series of mesons are known as the Kaons.
The of series are known as the Pions.
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Notice that there 3 uncharged mesons ( K 0, 0
, 0 ) .
Standard Model
Background:
In 1954, Chen Ning Yang and Robert Mills extended the concept of gauge
theory for abelian groups, e.g. quantum electrodynamics, to nonabelian
groups to provide an explanation for strong interactions. In 1961, Sheldon
Glashow combined the electromagnetic and weak interactions. In 1967 Steven
Weinberg and Abdus Salam incorporated the Higgs mechanism into
Glashow's electroweak interaction, giving it its modern form.
The Higgs mechanism is believed to give rise to the masses of all
the elementary particles in the Standard Model. This includes the masses of
the W and Z bosons, and the masses of the fermions, i.e.
the quarks and leptons.
After the neutral weak currents caused by Z boson exchange were
discovered at CERN in 1973, the electroweak theory became widely accepted
and Glashow, Salam, and Weinberg shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for
discovering it. The W± and Z0 bosons were discovered experimentally in 1983;
and the ratio of their masses was found to be as the Standard Model
predicted.
The theory of the strong interaction (i.e. quantum chromodynamics, QCD), to
which many contributed, acquired its modern form in 1973–74
when asymptotic freedom was proposed (a development which made QCD the
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main focus of theoretical research) and experiments confirmed that
the hadrons were composed of fractionally charged quarks.
The term "Standard Model" was first coined by Abraham Pais and Sam
Treiman in 1975, with reference to the electroweak theory with four quarks.
The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the
four known fundamental forces (the electromagnetic, weak,
and strong interactions and not including the gravitational force) in
the universe, as well as classifying all known elementary particles. It was
developed in stages throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the
work of many scientists around the world, with the current formulation being
finalized in the mid-1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence
of quarks. Since then, confirmation of the top quark (1995), the tau
neutrino (2000), and the Higgs boson (2012) have added further credence to
the Standard Model. In addition, the Standard Model has predicted various
properties of weak neutral currents and the W and Z bosons with great
accuracy.
