What are Quarks, Leptons and Bosons?

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  Table of contents 

WHAT ARE 

QUARKS, LEPTONS

 AND 

BOSONS?


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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.

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

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With Warm Wishes,
Lavanya

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