Strange particle

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A strange particle is an elementary particle with a strangeness quantum number different from zero. Strange particles are members of a large family of elementary particles carrying the quantum number of strangeness, including several cases where the quantum number is hidden in a strange/anti-strange pair, for example in the ϕ meson. The classification of particles, as mesons and baryons, follows the quark/anti-quark and three quark content respectively. Murray Gell-Mann recognized the group structure of elementary particle classification introducing the flavour SU(3) and strangeness as a new quantum number. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

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−0.4
 MeV/c2
. Like all quarks, the up quark is an elementary fermion with spin 1/2, and experiences all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. The antiparticle of the up quark is the up antiquark, which differs from it only in that some of its properties, such as charge have equal magnitude but opposite sign.

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In particle physics, strangeness is a property of particles, expressed as a quantum number, for describing decay of particles in strong and electromagnetic interactions which occur in a short period of time. The strangeness of a particle is defined as: where n
s
represents the number of strange quarks and n
s
represents the number of strange antiquarks. Evaluation of strangeness production has become an important tool in search, discovery, observation and interpretation of quark–gluon plasma (QGP). Strangeness is an excited state of matter and its decay is governed by CKM mixing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eightfold way (physics)</span> Classification scheme for hadrons

In physics, the eightfold way is an organizational scheme for a class of subatomic particles known as hadrons that led to the development of the quark model. Both the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann and the Israeli physicist Yuval Ne'eman independently and simultaneously proposed the idea in 1961. The name comes from Gell-Mann's (1961) paper and is an allusion to the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism.

In particle physics, flavour or flavor refers to the species of an elementary particle. The Standard Model counts six flavours of quarks and six flavours of leptons. They are conventionally parameterized with flavour quantum numbers that are assigned to all subatomic particles. They can also be described by some of the family symmetries proposed for the quark-lepton generations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quark model</span> Classification scheme of hadrons

In particle physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks—the quarks and antiquarks that give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons. The quark model underlies "flavor SU(3)", or the Eightfold Way, the successful classification scheme organizing the large number of lighter hadrons that were being discovered starting in the 1950s and continuing through the 1960s. It received experimental verification beginning in the late 1960s and is a valid and effective classification of them to date. The model was independently proposed by physicists Murray Gell-Mann, who dubbed them "quarks" in a concise paper, and George Zweig, who suggested "aces" in a longer manuscript. André Petermann also touched upon the central ideas from 1963 to 1965, without as much quantitative substantiation. Today, the model has essentially been absorbed as a component of the established quantum field theory of strong and electroweak particle interactions, dubbed the Standard Model.

The Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula (sometimes known as the NNG formula) relates the baryon number B, the strangeness S, the isospin I3 of quarks and hadrons to the electric charge Q. It was originally given by Kazuhiko Nishijima and Tadao Nakano in 1953, and led to the proposal of strangeness as a concept, which Nishijima originally called "eta-charge" after the eta meson. Murray Gell-Mann proposed the formula independently in 1956. The modern version of the formula relates all flavour quantum numbers (isospin up and down, strangeness, charm, bottomness, and topness) with the baryon number and the electric charge.

In particle physics, chiral symmetry breaking generally refers to the dynamical spontaneous breaking of a chiral symmetry associated with massless fermions. This is usually associated with a gauge theory such as quantum chromodynamics, the quantum field theory of the strong interaction, and it also occurs through the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism in the electroweak interactions of the standard model. This phenomenon is analogous to magnetization and superconductivity in condensed matter physics. The basic idea was introduced to particle physics by Yoichiro Nambu, in particular, in the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model, which is a solvable theory of composite bosons that exhibits dynamical spontaneous chiral symmetry when a 4-fermion coupling constant becomes sufficiently large. Nambu was awarded the 2008 Nobel prize in physics "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shoichi Sakata</span> Japanese physicist

Shoichi Sakata was a Japanese physicist and Marxist who was internationally known for theoretical work on the subatomic particles. He proposed the two meson theory, the Sakata model, and the Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata neutrino mixing matrix.

In physics, the Gell-Mann–Okubo mass formula provides a sum rule for the masses of hadrons within a specific multiplet, determined by their isospin (I) and strangeness (or alternatively, hypercharge)

References

  1. Gell-Mann, M. (1982). "Strangeness". Le Journal de Physique Colloques. 43 (C8): C8–395–C8-408. doi:10.1051/jphyscol:1982825. ISSN   0449-1947. Archived from the original on 30 April 2010.
  2. Rochester, George D. (1985), "The Early History of the Strange Particles", in Sekido, Yataro; Elliot, Harry (eds.), Early History of Cosmic Ray Studies, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol. 118, Springer Netherlands, pp. 299–321, Bibcode:1985ASSL..118..299R, doi:10.1007/978-94-009-5434-2_31, ISBN   978-94-010-8899-2 , retrieved 2020-05-06
  3. Wroblewski, A.K. (2004). "Hypernuclei (and Strange Particles) — How It All Began?". Acta Phys. Pol. B. 35: 901.
  4. Griffiths, David (1987). Introduction to Elementary Particles. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 28–33. ISBN   978-3-527-61847-7. Strange particles (1947-1960)
  5. Adair, Robert Kemp; Fowler, Earle Cabell (1963). Strange particles. Interscience Publishers.