What are Quarks, Leptons and Bosons?

By -

  Table of contents 

WHAT ARE 

QUARKS, LEPTONS

 AND 

BOSONS?


View my previous article here -

View the next article here -

-----------------------------------------

Here is a brief overview of what are quarks, leptons and bosons - families of particles that make up the Standard Model!
(Based on what has been discussed so far). 

* ADDITIONAL * - 
A fermion is any particle that has an odd half-integer (like 1/2, 3/2, and so forth) spin. Quarks and leptons, as well as most composite particles, like protons and neutrons, are fermions.

QUARKS:

  • Quarks are subatomic particles that are found in protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus.
  • There are 6 quarks. 
  • Up quark and Down quark belong to the first generation.
  • Charm quark and Strange quark belong to the second generation.
  • Top quark and Bottom quark belong to the third generation.
  • The second and third generation particles are more massive and unstable when compared to the first generation particles. They quickly decay into their corresponding first generation particles. 
  • Up Quark has a charge of +2/3 (+two-thirds).
  • Down Quark has a charge of -1/3 (-one-third).
  • A proton has 2 Up quarks and 1 Down quark.
  • We observe that 2*(charge of up quark) + 1*(charge of down quark) = 2*(+2/3) + 1*(-1/3) = 3/3 = +1 charge. 
  • Thus, a proton has a positive charge of 1.
  • A neutron has 1 Up quark and 2 Down quarks.
  • We observe that 1*(charge of up quark) + 2*(charge of down quark) = 1*(+2/3) + 2*(-1/3) = 3/3 = 0 charge. 
  • Thus, a neutron has no charge.

LEPTONS:

  • Electrons in the atoms are a kind of particles known as leptons.
  • Electron and Electron Neutrino belong to the first generation.
  • Muon and Muon Neutrino belong to the second generation.
  • Tau and Tau Neutrino belong to the third generation. 
  • The second and third generation particles are more massive and unstable when compared to the first generation particles. They quickly decay into their corresponding first generation particles. 
  • Neutrinos are almost invisible, extremely small, almost undetectable particles. Although they are produced in trillions by the sun and travel through our body, it was hard to detect them because they rarely interact with the matter that we are made up of.

BOSONS:

  • Bosons are like tiny mailmen that deliver "force letters" between particles, that instruct them to move towards or away from each other.
  • For e.g. - gravity is a force and graviton is its boson which interacts with us to make us stay in the ground.
  • The graviton is the only boson that we don't have any evidence for yet.
  • (The boson for gravitational force is believed to be the graviton.)
  • The boson for electromagnetic force is the photon.
  • The boson for strong nuclear force is the gluon.
  • The bosons for weak nuclear force are the W boson and the Z boson.
  • We also have the Higgs Boson which is found in the Higgs field. 
  • Higgs field is the cosmic energy field where the particles gain mass - thus preventing the Standard Model from breaking down. (It was found that if we made the particles in the Standard Model massive, the theory made no sense. However, they existed as massive. The solution to this was the Higgs field)
  • Bosons are like messengers that deliver instructions to make particles move/act in particular ways.

SOME MORE EXTRA POINTS:

  • Quarks interact with each other through the electromagnetic force or the strong nuclear force.
  • Electrons use only electromagnetism.
  • Quarks exchange strong force bosons, thus communicating strong nuclear attraction with each other. 
  • The protons they build exchange particles of electromagnetism i.e. photons with the electrons.
  • Thus, the quarks end up locked in the nuclei while the electrons remain attached by their electric attraction building atoms.

-----------------------------------------

View the next article here -

View my previous article here -

View more structured order of the articles here -

-----------------------------------------

Feel free to ask/share anything additional in the comments section!

I am still learning Particle physics, but will try my best to answer your questions :)

Kindly let me know about any errors here.

You can also share anything additional for this article here.

View my previous article here -

View the next article here -

View more structured order of the articles here -

See more articles here -

Solve brain teasers! View my other blog here-

With Warm Wishes,
Lavanya

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Particle Physics - Introduction

By -
Table of contents   PARTICLE PHYSICS - INTRODUCTION View the next article here - More on Particle Physics and Why it matters? ----------------------------------------- What is Particle physics? Let me give a hint by telling you what particles are? Everything in our universe is made up of extremely small components known as particles. Now did you get it? Particle Physics is nothing but the study of how our universe was made and what our universe is constituted of. To prove their existence and see how they behave, scientists observe them until the particles leave a sign. Often, instead of waiting for the particles to leave a sign, they make particles by colliding known particles. How? Well, the accelerators speed up the known particles almost to the speed of light. The particles collide and release massive energy, which results in the creation of new particles. This is why Particle physics is also known as High Energy Physics . At present, there are 17 particles that have been identifie
Read more

Cosmic Rays

By -
Image
    Table of contents  COSMIC RAYS View my previous post here - The Survival of a Neutron View the next article here - (Coming soon!) ----------------------------------------- Cosmic Rays are super fast subatomic particles "raining" down on us from space.  These high-energy particles arriving from outer space are mainly (89%) protons – nuclei of hydrogen, the lightest and most common element in the universe – but they also include nuclei of helium (10%) and heavier nuclei (1%), all the way up to uranium. (Source of information: CERN) Their origin remains to be a mystery.  These are radiations or rather little bits of atoms whizzing by us, even through us, all the time! We cannot feel them, because they don't affect the human body . However, they do show their presence in different ways. For instance, they cause computers to malfunction . Scientists have been studying cosmic rays since the early 1900s. At the beginning of the 20th century, around 1911, a physicist, Vict
Read more