Chapter 46
Particle Physics
and Cosmology
Atoms as Elementary
Particles
Atoms
From the Greek for “indivisible”
Were once thought to be the elementary
particles
Atom constituents
Proton, neutron, and electron
After 1932 these were viewed as
elementary
All matter was made up of these particles
Discovery of New Particles
New particles
Beginning in the 1940s, many new
particles were discovered in experiments
involving high-energy collisions
Characteristically unstable with short
lifetimes
Over 300 have been catalogued
A pattern was needed to understand all
these new particles
Elementary Particles – Quarks
Physicists recognize that most particles are
made up of quarks
Exceptions include photons, electrons and a few
others
The quark model has reduced the array of
particles to a manageable few
The quark model has successfully predicted
new quark combinations that were
subsequently found in many experiments
Fundamental Forces
All particles in nature are subject to four
fundamental forces:
Nuclear force
Electromagnetic force
Weak force
Gravitational force
This list is in order of decreasing strength
Nuclear Force
Attractive force between nucleons
Strongest of all the fundamental forces
Very short-ranged
Less than 10-15 m
Negligible for separations greater than this
Electromagnetic Force
Is responsible for the binding of atoms
and molecules
About 10-2 times the strength of the
nuclear force
A long-range force that decreases in
strength as the inverse square of the
separation between interacting particles
Weak Force
Is responsible for instability in certain nuclei
Is responsible for decay processes
Its strength is about 10-5 times that of the
strong force
Scientists now believe the weak and
electromagnetic forces are two
manifestations of a single force, the
electroweak force
Gravitational Force
A familiar force that holds the planets,
stars and galaxies together
Its effect on elementary particles is
negligible
A long-range force
It is about 10-39 times the strength of the
strong force
Weakest of the four fundamental forces
Explanation of Forces
Forces between particles are often described
in terms of the actions of field particles or
exchange particles
Field particles are also called gauge bosons
The interacting particles continually emit and
absorb field particles
The emission of a field particle by one particle and
its absorption by another manifests itself as a
force between the two interacting particles
The force is mediated, or carried, by the field
particles
Forces and Mediating
Particles
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac
1902 – 1984
Understanding of
antimatter
Unification of quantum
mechanics and relativity
Contributions of
quantum physics and
cosmology
Nobel Prize in 1933
Antiparticles
For every particle, there is an antiparticle
From Dirac’s version of quantum mechanics that incorporated
special relativity
An antiparticle has the same mass as the particle, but
the opposite charge
The positron (electron’s antiparticle) was discovered by
Anderson in 1932
Since then, it has been observed in numerous experiments
Practically every known elementary particle has a
distinct antiparticle
Among the exceptions are the photon and the neutral pi
particles
Dirac’s Explanation
The solutions to the relativistic quantum
mechanic equations required negative energy
states
Dirac postulated that all negative energy
states were filled
These electrons are collectively called the Dirac
sea
Electrons in the Dirac sea are not directly
observable because the exclusion principle
does not let them react to external forces
Dirac’s Explanation, cont.
An interaction may
cause the electron
to be excited to a
positive energy state
This would leave
behind a hole in the
Dirac sea
The hole can react
to external forces
and is observable
Dirac’s Explanation, final
The hole reacts in a way similar to the
electron, except that it has a positive
charge
The hole is the antiparticle of the
electron
The electron’s antiparticle is now called a
positron
Pair Production
A common source of positrons is pair
production
A gamma-ray photon with sufficient
energy interacts with a nucleus and an
electron-positron pair is created from
the photon
The photon must have a minimum
energy equal to 2mec2 to create the pair
Pair Production, cont.
A photograph of pair production produced by 300
MeV gamma rays striking a lead sheet
The minimum energy to create the pair is 1.02 MeV
The excess energy appears as kinetic energy of the
two particles
Annihilation
The reverse of pair production can also
occur
Under the proper conditions, an
electron and a positron can annihilate
each other to produce two gamma ray
photons
e- + e+ → 2γ
Hideki Yukawa
1907 – 1981
Nobel Prize in 1949
for predicting the
existence of mesons
Developed the first
theory to explain the
nature of the nuclear
force
Mesons
Developed from a theory to explain the
nuclear force
Yukawa used the idea of forces being
mediated by particles to explain the nuclear
force
A new particle was introduced whose
exchange between nucleons causes the
nuclear force
It was called a meson
Mesons, cont.
The proposed particle would have a mass
about 200 times that of the electron
Efforts to establish the existence of the
particle were done by studying cosmic rays in
the 1930s
Actually discovered multiple particles
pi meson (pion)
muon
Not a meson
Pion
There are three varieties of pions
Muons
Two muons exist
µ- and its antiparticle µ+
The muon is unstable
It has a mean lifetime of 2.2 µs
It decays into an electron, a neutrino, and
an antineutrino
Richard Feynman
1918 – 1988
Developed quantum
electrodynamics
Shared the Nobel Prize
in 1965
Worked on Challenger
investigation and
demonstrated the
effects of cold
temperatures on the
rubber O-rings used
Feynman Diagrams
A graphical representation of the interaction
between two particles
Feynman diagrams are named for Richard
Feynman who developed them
A Feynman diagram is a qualitative graph of
time on the vertical axis and space on the
horizontal axis
Actual values of time and space are not important
The actual paths of the particles are not shown
Feynman Diagram – Two
Electrons
The photon is the field
particle that mediates the
interaction
The photon transfers energy
and momentum from one
electron to the other
The photon is called a virtual
photon
It can never be detected
directly because it is absorbed
by the second electron very
shortly after being emitted by
the first electron
The Virtual Photon
The existence of the virtual photon
seems to violate the law of conservation
of energy
But, due to the uncertainty principle and its
very short lifetime, the photon’s excess
energy is less than the uncertainty in its
energy
The virtual photon can exist for short time
intervals, such that ∆E ≈ h / 2 ∆t
Feynman Diagram – Proton and
Neutron (Yukawa’s Model)
The exchange is via the
nuclear force
The existence of the pion is
allowed in spite of conservation
of energy if this energy is
surrendered in a short enough
time
Analysis predicts the rest
energy of the pion to be 130
MeV / c2
This is in close agreement with
experimental results
Nucleon Interaction – More
About Yukawa’s Model
The time interval required for the pion to
transfer from one nucleon to the other is
The distance the pion could travel is c∆t
Using these pieces of information, the
rest energy of the pion is about 100
MeV
Nucleon Interaction, final
This concept says that a system of two
nucleons can change into two nucleons plus
a pion as long as it returns to its original state
in a very short time interval
It is often said that the nucleon undergoes
fluctuations as it emits and absorbs field
particles
These fluctuations are a consequence of quantum
mechanics and special relativity
Feynman Diagram – Weak
Interaction
An electron and a
neutrino are
interacting via the
weak force
The Z0 is the
mediating particle
The weak force can also
be mediated by the W±
The W± and Z0 were
discovered in 1983 at
CERN
Classification of Particles
Two broad categories
Classified by interactions
hadrons – interact through strong force
leptons – interact through weak force
Note on terminology
The strong force is reserved for the force between
quarks
The nuclear force is reserved for the force
between nucleons
The nuclear force is a secondary result of the strong force
Hadrons
Interact through the strong force
Two subclasses distinguished by masses and
spins
Mesons
Decay finally into electrons, positrons, neutrinos and photons
Integer spins (0 or 1)
Baryons
Masses equal to or greater than a proton
Half integer spin values (1/2 or 3/2)
Decay into end products that include a proton (except for the
proton)
Not elementary, but composed of quarks
Leptons
Do not interact through strong force
All have spin of 1/2
Leptons appear truly elementary
No substructure
Point-like particles
Scientists currently believe only six leptons
exist, along with their antiparticles
Electron and electron neutrino
Muon and its neutrino
Tau and its neutrino
Conservation Laws
A number of conservation laws are important
in the study of elementary particles
Already have seen conservation of
Energy
Linear momentum
Angular momentum
Electric charge
Two additional laws are
Conservation of Baryon Number
Conservation of Lepton Number
Conservation of Baryon
Number
Whenever a baryon is created in a reaction or
a decay, an antibaryon is also created
B is the baryon number
B = +1 for baryons
B = -1 for antibaryons
B = 0 for all other particles
The sum of the baryon numbers before a
reaction or a decay must equal the sum of
baryon numbers after the process
Conservation of Baryon
Number and Proton Stability
There is a debate over whether the proton
decays or not
If baryon number is absolutely conserved, the
proton cannot decay
Some recent theories predict the proton is
unstable and so baryon number would not be
absolutely conserved
For now, we can say that the proton has a half-life
of at least 1033 years
Conservation of Baryon
Number, Example
Is baryon number conserved in the
following reaction?
Baryon numbers:
Before: 1 + 1 = 2
After: 1 + 1 + 1 + (-1) = 2
Baryon number is conserved
The reaction can occur as long as energy
is conserved
Conservation of Lepton
Number
There are three conservation laws, one for
each variety of lepton
The law of conservation of electron
lepton number states that the sum of
electron lepton numbers before the
process must equal the sum of the
electron lepton number after the process
The process can be a reaction or a decay
Conservation of Lepton
Number, cont.
Assigning electron lepton numbers
Le = 1 for the electron and the electron neutrino
Le = -1 for the positron and the electron
antineutrino
Le = 0 for all other particles
Similarly, when a process involves muons,
muon lepton number must be conserved and
when a process involves tau particles, tau
lepton numbers must be conserved
Muon and tau lepton numbers are assigned
similarly to electron lepton numbers
Conservation of Lepton
Number, Example
Is lepton number conserved in the
following reaction?
Check electron lepton numbers:
Before: Le = 0 After: Le = 1 + (-1) + 0 = 0
Electron lepton number is conserved
Check muon lepton numbers:
Before: Lµ = 1 After: Lµ = 0 + 0 + 1 = 1
Muon lepton number is conserved
Strange Particles
Some particles discovered in the 1950s were
found to exhibit unusual properties in their
production and decay and were given the
name strange particles
Peculiar features include:
Always produced in pairs
Although produced by the strong interaction, they
do not decay into particles that interact via the
strong interaction, but instead into particles that
interact via weak interactions
They decay much more slowly than particles decaying via
strong interactions
Strangeness
To explain these unusual properties, a new
quantum number S, called strangeness, was
introduced
A new law, the law of conservation of
strangeness was also needed
It states that the sum of strangeness numbers before
a reaction or a decay must equal the sum of the
strangeness numbers after the process
Strong and electromagnetic interactions obey
the law of conservation of strangeness, but the
weak interaction does not
Bubble Chamber
Example of Strange Particles
The dashed lines
represent neutral
particles
At the bottom,
π - + p → K0 + Λ0
Then Λ0 → π - + p
and
K0 → π + µ- + νµ
Creating Particles
Most elementary particles are unstable
and are created in nature only rarely, in
cosmic ray showers
In the laboratory, great numbers of
particles can be created in controlled
collisions between high-energy particles
and a suitable target
Measuring Properties of
Particles
A magnetic field causes the charged particles
to curve
This allows measurement of their charge and
linear momentum
If the mass and momentum of the incident
particle are known, the product particle’s
mass, kinetic energy, and speed can usually
be calculated
The particle’s lifetime can be calculated from
the length of its track and its speed
Resonance Particles
Short-lived particles are known as
resonance particles
They exist for times around 10-20 s
They cannot be detected directly
Their properties can be inferred from
data on their decay products
Experimental Evidence
The location of the
peak tells us the mass
of the particle
The smaller peaks
indicate the presence
of two other resonance
particles
The width of the peak
can be used to infer
the lifetime of the
particle
Murray Gell-Mann
1929 –
Studies dealing with
subatomic particles
Named quarks
Developed pattern
known as eightfold
way
Nobel Prize in 1969
The Eightfold Way
Many classification schemes have been
proposed to group particles into families
These schemes are based on spin, baryon
number, strangeness, etc.
The eightfold way is a symmetric pattern
proposed by Gell-Mann and Ne’eman
There are many symmetrical patterns that can be
developed
The patterns of the eightfold way have much
in common with the periodic table
Including predicting missing particles
An Eightfold Way for Baryons
A hexagonal pattern for
the eight spin 1/2
baryons
Stangeness vs. charge
is plotted on a sloping
coordinate system
Six of the baryons form
a hexagon with the
other two particles at its
center
An Eightfold Way for Mesons
The mesons with spins of
0 can be plotted
Strangeness vs. charge
on a sloping coordinate
system is plotted
A hexagonal pattern
emerges
The particles and their
antiparticles are on
opposite sides on the
perimeter of the hexagon
The remaining three
mesons are at the center
Eightfold Way for Spin 3/2
Baryons
The nine particles
known at the time were
arranged as shown
An empty spot occurred
Gell-Mann predicted the
missing particle and its
properties
About three years later,
the particle was found
and all its predicted
properties were
confirmed
Quarks
Hadrons are complex particles with size
and structure
Hadrons decay into other hadrons
There are many different hadrons
Quarks are proposed as the elementary
particles that constitute the hadrons
Originally proposed independently by Gell-
Mann and Zweig
Original Quark Model
Three types or flavors
u – up
d – down
s – strange
Associated with each quark is an antiquark
The antiquark has opposite charge, baryon number
and strangeness
Quarks have fractional electrical charges
+1/3 e and –2/3 e
All ordinary matter consists of just u and d
quarks
Original Quark Model – Rules
All the hadrons at the time of the
original proposal were explained by
three rules
Mesons consist of one quark and one
antiquark
This gives them a baryon number of 0
Baryons consist of three quarks
Antibaryons consist of three antiquarks
Quark Composition of
Particles – Examples
Mesons are
quark-
antiquark pairs
Baryons are
quark triplets
Active Figure 46.12
(SLIDESHOW MODE ONLY)
Additions to the Original
Quark Model – Charm
Another quark was needed to account for
some discrepancies between predictions of
the model and experimental results
A new quantum number, C, was assigned to
the property of charm
Charm would be conserved in strong and
electromagnetic interactions, but not in weak
interactions
In 1974, a new meson, the J/Ψ, was
discovered that was shown to be a charm
quark and charm antiquark pair
More Additions –
Top and Bottom
Discovery led to the need for a more
elaborate quark model
This need led to the proposal of two new
quarks
t – top (or truth)
b – bottom (or beauty)
Added quantum numbers of topness and
bottomness
Verification
b quark was found in a Y- meson in 1977
t quark was found in 1995 at Fermilab
Numbers of Particles
At the present, physicists believe the
“building blocks” of matter are complete
Six quarks with their antiparticles
Six leptons with their antiparticles
Particle Properties
More About Quarks
No isolated quark has ever been observed
It is believed that at ordinary temperatures,
quarks are permanently confined inside
ordinary particles due to the strong force
Current efforts are underway to form a quark-
gluon plasma where quarks would be freed
from neutrons and protons
Color
It was noted that certain particles had
quark compositions that violated the
exclusion principle
Quarks are fermions, with half-integer
spins and so should obey the exclusion
principle
The explanation is an additional
property called color charge
The color has nothing to do with the visual
sensation from light, it is simply a name
Colored Quarks
Color “charge” occurs in red, blue, or green
Antiquarks have colors of antired, antiblue, or
antigreen
These are the quantum “numbers” of color charge
Color obeys the exclusion principle
A combination of quarks of each color
produces white (or colorless)
Baryons and mesons are always colorless
Quantum Chromodynamics
(QCD)
QCD gave a new theory of how quarks
interact with each other by means of color
charge
The strong force between quarks is often
called the color force
The strong force between quarks is mediated
by gluons
Gluons are massless particles
When a quark emits or absorbs a gluon, its
color may change
More About Color Charge
Particles with like colors repel and those with
opposite colors attract
Different colors attract, but not as strongly as a
color and its anticolor
The color force between color-neutral
hadrons is negligible at large separations
The strong color force between the constituent
quarks does not exactly cancel at small
separations
This residual strong force is the nuclear force that
binds the protons and neutrons to form nuclei
Quark Structure of a Meson
A green quark is
attracted to an
antigreen quark
The quark –
antiquark pair forms
a meson
The resulting meson
is colorless
Quark Structure of a Baryon
Quarks of different
colors attract each
other
The quark triplet
forms a baryon
Each baryon contains
three quarks with
three different colors
The baryon is
colorless
QCD Explanation of a
Neutron-Proton Interaction
Each quark within the
proton and neutron is
continually emitting and
absorbing gluons
The energy of the gluon
can result in the
creation of quark-
antiquark pairs
When close enough,
these gluons and
quarks can be
exchanged, producing
the strong force
Elementary Particles –
A Current View
Scientists now believe there are three
classifications of truly elementary particles
Leptons
Quarks
Field particles
These three particles are further classified as
fermions or bosons
Quarks and leptons are fermions
Field particles are bosons
Weak Force
The weak force is believed to be mediated by
the W+, W-, and Z0 bosons
These particles are said to have weak charge
Therefore, each elementary particle can have
Mass
Electric charge
Color charge
Weak charge
Electroweak Theory
The electroweak theory unifies
electromagnetic and weak interactions
The theory postulates that the weak and
electromagnetic interactions have the
same strength when the particles
involved have very high energies
Viewed as two different manifestations of a
single unifying electroweak interaction
The Standard Model
A combination of the electroweak theory and
QCD for the strong interaction form the
Standard Model
Essential ingredients of the Standard Model
The strong force, mediated by gluons, holds the quarks
together to form composite particles
Leptons participate only in electromagnetic and weak
interactions
The electromagnetic force is mediated by photons
The weak force is mediated by W and Z bosons
The Standard Model does not actually yet
include the gravitational force
The Standard Model – Chart
Mediator Masses
Why does the photon have no mass while
the W and Z bosons do have mass?
Not answered by the Standard Model
The difference in behavior between low and
high energies is called symmetry breaking
The Higgs boson has been proposed to
account for the masses
Large colliders are necessary to achieve the energy
needed to find the Higgs boson
In a collider, particles with equal masses and equal
kinetic energies, traveling in opposite directions,
collide head-on to produce the required reaction
Particle Paths After a Collision
Particle Paths After a Collision
with a Gold Nucleus
The Big Bang
This theory states that the universe had a
beginning, and that it was so cataclysmic that
it is impossible to look back beyond it
Also, during the first few minutes after the
creation of the universe, all four interactions
were unified
All matter was contained in a quark-gluon plasma
As time increased and temperature
decreased, the forces broke apart
A Brief History of the Universe
Cosmic Background Radiation
(CBR)
CBR represents the
cosmic “glow” left over
from the Big Bang
The radiation had equal
strengths in all directions
The curve fits a black
body at 2.7K
There are small
irregularities that allowed
for the formation of
galaxies and other objects
CBR, cont.
The COBE satellite found that the
background radiation had irregularities
that corresponded to temperature
variations of 0.000 3 K
Including other data, it was concluded
that a peak in fluctuation intensity
occurred 300 000 years after the Big
Bang
Hubble’s Law
The Big Bang theory predicts that the
universe is expanding
Hubble claimed the whole universe is
expanding
Furthermore, the speeds at which galaxies
are receding from the earth is directly
proportional to their distance from us
This is called Hubble’s law
Hubble’s Law, cont.
Hubble’s law can
be written as
v = HR
H is called the
Hubble constant
H ≈ 17 x 10-3 m/s ly
Remaining Questions About
the Universe
Will the universe expand forever?
Today, astronomers and physicists are trying to
determine the rate of expansion
It depends on the average mass density of the
universe compared to a critical density
Missing mass in the universe
The amount of non-luminous (dark) matter seems
to be much greater than what we can see
Various particles have been proposed to make up
this dark matter
Another Remaining Question
About the Universe
Is there mysterious energy in the
universe?
Observations have led to the idea that the
expansion of the universe is accelerating
To explain this acceleration, dark energy
has been proposed
The dark energy results in an effective
repulsive force that causes the expansion
rate to increase
Some Questions in Particle
Physics
Why so little antimatter in the Universe?
Is it possible to unify electroweak and strong forces?
Why do quarks and leptons form similar but distinct
families?
Are muons the same as electrons apart from their
difference in mass?
Why are some particles charged and others not?
Why do quarks carry fractional charge?
What determines the masses of fundamental
particles?
Can isolated quarks exist?
A New Perspective –
String Theory
String theory is one current effort at
answering some of the previous
questions
It is an effort to unify the four
fundamental forces by modeling all
particles as various vibrational modes of
an incredibly small string
String Theory, cont.
The typical length of a string is 10-35 m
This is called the Planck length
According to the string theory, each
quantized mode of vibration of the
string corresponds to a different
elementary particle in the Standard
Model
Complications of the String
Theory
It requires space-time to have ten
dimensions
Four of the ten dimensions are visible to
us, the other six are compactified (curled)
Another complication is that it is difficult
for theorists to guide experimentalists
as to what to look for in an experiment
Direct experimentation on strings is
impossible
String Theory Prediction –
SUSY
One prediction of string theory is
supersymmetry (SUSY)
It suggests that every elementary particle
has a superpartner that has not yet been
observed
Supersymmetry is a broken symmetry and
the masses of the superpartners are above
our current capabilities to detect
Another Perspective –
M-Theory
M-theory is an eleven-dimensional
theory based on membranes rather
than strings
M-theory is claimed to reduce to string
theory if one compactifies from the
eleven dimensions to ten