National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute)

Associate Professor Andrey OLCHAK, DSc

EdEx Course “How Our World Is Designed?”

Supporting material

Inside the Atomic Nuclei: Elementary Particles and Interactions

Now we know how the atom is constructed. We know that

 The typical size of an atom equals to ~10–10 m.

 It contains a much smaller nucleus (~10–15 m ≪10–10 m), where
practically all the atom‟s mass is concentrated and which is carrying
positive electric charge.
 Nucleus is surrounded by the negatively charged electrons (earlier also
known as the β-particles) subordinating the Laws of quantum mechanics.
 The number of electrons is exactly equal to the positive charge of nucleus and it
coincides exactly with the position number of the element in the periodical table of
chemical elements.

However, we still have to go deeper. The next question is: how the atomic nucleus is arranged?

Already at the very beginning of nucleus studies at the beginning of 20-th century it was rather
clear that it should have some structure. There were several evidences of it:

1) α-radiation. Heavy (their mass is comparable to the mass of a nucleus, and ~104 as big
as the mass of the electron), always carrying one and the same positive electric charge
equal to doubled elementary charge, these particles have nowhere to originate from but
the depth of a nuclei. And they are able to exist separately. This means that they have to
be some parts of the nucleus structure.
2) Existence of isotopes. At the very beginning of nucleus studies (~ in 1906–07) it was
found out that some products of the radioactive decay of uranium or thorium may have
different atomic masses but absolutely the same chemical properties. Later it was
established that many other chemical elements, even from the very top of the Mendeleev
table, may have atoms (nuclei) with different masses, but one and the same electric
charge of the nucleus and number of electrons. These species of one and the same
chemical element were called isotopes.

For example, even hydrogen has three isotopes: one with the mass equal to 1 unit of the
atomic mass = 1,67·10–27 kg named protium – it is the most common, so to say – normal
hydrogen, another one with 2 atomic masses (named deuterium) and one more with 3
atomic masses (named tritium). All of their nuclei are carrying one and the same electric
charge equal to the elementary one e = 1,6·10–19 Coulomb. The same differences between
masses of isotopes (they are all multiples of 1 unit of the atomic mass) are typical for all
other chemical elements.

3) The regularity of masses in the Mendeleev table. The properties (charges and rounded
values of the atomic masses) of chemical elements especially from the upper part of the
Mendeleev table do have striking regularity. Each consecutive element has the mass
greater by two times.
 Chemical Charge Z Mass number Ratio
element A A/Z
H 1 1 1
He 2 4 2
Li 3 7 2 1/3
Be 4 9 2 1/4
B 5 10 2
C 6 12 2
N 7 14 2
O 8 16 2
F 9 19 2 1/9
Ne 10 20 2

Si 14 28 2
Fe 26 56 2.07
Ag 47 108 2.30
Au 79 197 2.51
U 92 238 2.59

All the listed facts lead to the conclusion that any nucleus is composed of certain particles named
nucleons. Evidently there exists at least two types of nucleons, both having the mass close to the
atomic unit of the mass. One of them (named proton) carries the positive electric charge equal to
the elementary one. Another type (named neutron) is electrically neutral. Thus α–particles can
be interpreted as aggregates of 2 protons and 2 neutrons (nucleus of the helium). Different
isotopes of one and the same chemical element shall have the same number of protons in their
nucleus defining its electric charge, the number of electrons in atom and, thus, all its chemical
properties, but may differ by the number of neutrons.

Evidently, neutrons are necessary to keep the nucleus stable. Protons are all positively charged
and, thus, should repulse from each other. To keep them together some other kind of force is
necessary, not the electrostatic and not the gravitation, which is too weak to compete with
electrostatic repulsion. This new force must be much stronger than the electrostatic repulsion.
Presumably, neutrons ensure within the nucleus the predominance of this new force which was
later named – it is clear why – the strong interaction. Thus, in addition to the already known
gravitation and electromagnetic forces, the new third kind of fundamental interactions appears on
the scene.

Protons (designated in physics as p+) were experimentally found in 1920s, again by Ernest
Rutherford. Protons proved to be very stable particles. Their lifetime is practically infinite.

Neutrons (designated in physics as n) were experimentally discovered later

in 1930s by James Chadwick. Neutrons – when they are taken out of the
nucleus – are not stable and within ~15 minutes undergo the decay,
producing one proton, one electron (designation – e–) and, as it was later
discovered, some additional practically massless particle, named neutrino
(designated in physics by the Greek letter – v):

n → p+ + e– + (v)

Neutrino initially was not noticed in the neutrons‟ decay and the first studies
of it have led to a very unpleasant for physics conclusion that in this process
the fundamental energy conservation law is broken. To save the First Law of
Nature Austrian/Swiss theoretician Wolfgang Pauli assumed the existence
of some new particle named by an Italian physicist Enrico Fermi as
neutrino, which neither interacts with matter electromagnetically, nor participates in the strong
interaction. To support this assumption Enrico Fermi in 30s assumed the existence of the fourth
fundamental kind of interactions – named weak interaction – especially responsible for the
neutron decay (as well as for the β-radioactivity of nuclei).

Protons, neutrons, electrons and neutrinos, as the bricks of which the subatomic nature is built of,
received the common name elementary particles. The neutrino was finally experimentally
discovered in 1960s. Meanwhile and later, in the second half of the 20-th century, when
powerful particle accelerating machines were introduced into physical experiment, a great
variety of other particles looking also as quite elementary – different kinds of mesons, hadrons,
leptons and so on, and so on – were discovered. Looking at all this rapidly growing Zoo of “as if
elementary” particles physicists started suspect that not all of them are really elementary and that
there should be at least one more even deeper level of structure of matter to explain all this
variety in a more or less reasonable manner.

Here at the picture you can see the biggest ever

created by Mankind research tool – the particle
accelerating machine, named Large Hadron
Collider (LHC). It occupies a 30-km (nearly 20
miles) underground tunnel located at the border
between France and Switzerland near the city of
Geneva and it is operated by the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN).

At the lower picture you may see one of the particle detectors (under construction) located in
this tunnel. The LHC was put into operation in 2010.

In the second half of the 20-th century physics showed a tremendous progress in both the theory
and experiment.

We have no possibility to discuss here in detail all that progress and all the discoveries, made by
physics at the deepest level of structure of matter. We may only propose a sketchy summary of
how this structure looks like from the point of view of today‟s physics.

Let us start from the fundamental interactions. The modern physics counts exactly four of them,
listed in a descending order of strength: strong interaction, electromagnetic interaction, weak
interaction and finally the weakest and standing separately from the first three – gravitation.

To participate in this or that interaction the particle should have the corresponding type of
charge:

 electric charge (positive or negative) to participate in electromagnetic interactions

 so-called weak or lepton charge (it also can be positive or negative) to participate in weak
interactions
 so-called “color” charge (it may have 6 different types, provisionally designated as red,
green, blue, antired, anti-green and antiblue) to participate in strong interactions. The
analogy with color for this type of charge has a particular reason. As the white light is
produced by superposition of red, green and blue lights, the superposition of these three
„color‟ charges produces zero charge (the neutral color). The same result is produced by the
superposition of „color‟ and its „anti-color‟ (red and antired, for example).

The properties and addition rules for all the listed above types of charges can be illustrated by a
vector diagram. Addition of charges is done according to the rules of adding vectors. For binary
charges (electric and lepton (weak)) positive and negative charges can be presented by vectors
directed along the vertical axis. For strong „colors‟ the representing vectors are evenly
distributed over the XY-plane.

All types of charges are subordinated to the corresponding conservation laws. In any reaction,
collision or decay process, the sum of charges of each nature should be the same after the
interaction, as it was before it. For example, let us consider the neutron decay n → p+ + e- + (v)

The initial particle (neutron) possesses no electric charge (0) and no lepton charge (0). After the
decay the produced particles are all somehow charged. Proton has an electric charge equal to +1
and no lepton charge. Electron has electric charge equal to -1 and a lepton charge equal to +1.
Thus, the last particle (neutrino, or to be more precise (there exists several types of neutrinos) –
electron anti-neutrino) shall have no electric charge, but must have the lepton charge equal to –
1. Then, the sum of both types of charges will be equal to zero.

The strong „color‟ charge of any observable particle before and after reaction is always white
(meaning neutral or „zero‟). This is the consequence of the so-called „Color Confinement Law‟.
Observable particles may have internal structure (may consist of the „colored‟ sub-particles) but
for the external observer any existing elementary particle is mandatory „white‟.

Gravitation is far the weakest of all interactions, but all the existing matter possessing energy
participates in it. And energy – playing actually the role of the gravitational charge – is also
conserved in any reaction!

Each interaction from the quantum dynamics point of view should have a “carrier”: a certain
elementary quantum particle transporting the momentum and energy from one interacting object
to another. For the first three types of interactions those carrier particles are:

 electromagnetic interaction is transported by the well-known to us photons, electrically

neutral and having no rest mass, but possessing and carrying energy, momentum and spin.
 weak interaction is transported by three kinds of so called vector bosons: two electrically
charged W+, W– and one electrically neutral Z0, having all rather big rest mass (~ 50 atomic
units of mass) and very short life time. For these reasons the weak interaction can occur only
at the very close distances between interacting particles (~< 10–18 m).
 strong interaction is transported by the so-called gluons (from the word “glue” – they
literally do stick and hold together electrically charged particles in atomic nucleus). There
exists 8 different independent types of gluons, all having complicated „color‟ scheme.

In 1979 Americans Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg and Pakistani AbdalGhani AsSalami
were awarded the Noble Prize for developing of the Unified Theory of Weak and
Electromagnetic Interactions where these two types of forces are considered within one common
approach as two different manifestations of one joint electro-weak interaction.
Majority of physicists are convinced that finally we would be able to create a consistent joint
common theory of all three quantum interactions – strong, electromagnetic and weak. This
theory, though not yet completely accomplished, already has a name: the Great Unification
Theory. The most popular current version of this theory is usually called the Standard Model.

Gravitation, as we have already mentioned, stays separately. Some physicists do think that at
certain level gravitation should also reveal quantum properties and, thus, is also transported by
certain hypothetic „carrier‟, named graviton. However, until nowadays there exists neither
consistent quantum gravitation theory, nor the convincing experimental evidence of the quantum
nature of gravitation and of existence of gravitons.

Other physicists prefer to consider gravitation as a pure geometrical effect, as a consequence of

the fact that the space and the time in our Universe can be distorted or bended near massive
objects, and this bending is perceived by other objects as gravitation. This was actually the idea
of famous Albert Einstein and the essence of his extraordinary beautiful and consistent General
Relativity Theory. We will discuss more about it within a following part of our course.

The summary table of all types of the fundamental interactions is presented below.

Interaction Charge Particles- Relative force Range Theory

carriers (gravitation = 1)
Strong „Color‟ Gluons (8 types) 1038 10–15 m QCD – Quantum
chromodynamics
Electro-magnetic Electric Photon 1036 ∞ QED – Quantum
electrodynamics
Weak Lepton W+, W–, Z0 1025 10–18 m Unified Theory of
charge vector bosons Electro-Weak
Interactions
Gravitation Energy (rest Graviton (??) 1 ∞ General Relativity
mass) Theory (GRT)

And now about the structure of matter at the fundamental level. What are those elementary bricks, the
whole World is built of? The modern physics classifies them into two basic categories: leptons , which
are considered to be really elementary and having no structure (examples that we already know – the
electron and neutrino) and hadrons, (examples – the proton and neutron) which have certain internal
structure - they are consisting of the so-called quarks.

We shall start from the leptons. The most important and the most
well-known of all leptons is the electron having negative electric
charge –1 and positive lepton charge +1. As it was predicted in
1931 by quantum electrodynamics theory (Paul Dirac (1902–
1984)) any charged particle must have an anti-partner having
absolutely the same mass and carrying opposite by sign charges of
all sorts. The anti-partner for electron is known under the name
positron (e+) and was discovered experimentally already in 1932. It has the same rest mass as the
electron, but carries positive electric and negative lepton charge. Collision of the electron and
positron may results in their annihilation with production of a couple of photons with no charges
at all: e- + e+ → 2γ.

But energy and momentum in this annihilation reaction are preserved and carried out by photons.
Energy and momentum conservation laws demand that there shall be at least two photons born in
this reaction – and this is exactly what we also know from the experiments.

Another already known to us lepton pair – the neutrino ve having positive lepton charge and the
anti-neutrino with the negative lepton charge. Neutrinos participate only in the weak (plus, of
course, in gravitational) interaction, but that interaction is so weak that studying neutrinos is a
very difficult task. Until today we do not even know their rest masses more or less precisely.

Thus we have two pairs of the leptons: e-, e+, ve, with practically infinite lifetimes. Electrons are
forming atomic envelopes and defining the whole chemistry and most of physical interactions in
so to say normal matter that is surrounding us. Neutrinos are necessary to secure energy and
charge conservation laws in the neutron decay and (more important!) in thermo-nuclear
reactions, which serve as the source of all the Solar energy giving life to us and all other living
creatures on the Earth. Anti-particles – the positron and anti-neutrino - are introducing additional
symmetry and harmony into the system of elementary particles. So, if not to go too deep into
nucleus structure or too far into the past of the Universe (we will discuss this aspect later) it may
seem that no other leptons are necessary for the surrounding us matter to exist. However, there
are other leptons!.

There are additionally two pairs of the so-called “heavy electrons” – the muon (μ-), τ–lepton (τ-),
and their anti-partners (μ+, τ+) having finite (rather short) life time. Those leptons are observed
among the products of the high energy collisions at modern high energy particles colliders.
Correspondingly there are also two additional sorts of neutrinos (the μ –neutrino, τ –neutrino and
their anti-partners), produced in μ - and τ–lepton decay reactions. What for these two additional
generations of leptons may be necessary to the Mother Nature (or for the Great Plan of the
Creator)? We will touch this topic in the last part of our course. In the table below all the
available in the Nature leptons are listed with their basic properties.

Symbol Name Charges Rest mass

electric lepton
m/me
First Generation
e electron –1 1 1
ve e-neutrino 0 1 <4·10–5
Second Generation
μ muon –1 1 206.77
μe μ-neutrino 0 1 <0,38
Third Generation
τ τ-lepton –1 1 3477.2
τe τ-neutrino 0 1 <36
Rest masses of the neutrinos are not exactly known yet. Only some upper limits can be indicated.

There are additionally 6 anti-leptons with the same rest masses and opposite (by sign) charges.

The second basic category of elementary particles are hadrons consisting of the so-called
quarks. Initially quarks were introduced as a purely theoretical concept in 1964 by two
American physicists (independently): Murray Gell-Mann (born in 1929, New-York) and
George Zweig (born in 1937, Moscow).
All quarks have „color‟ (strong) charge (there are 6 sorts of „color‟ charges, as we remember)
and carry also fractional electric charge (+1/3 or +2/3 of elementary charge e), but they are never
observed and never can be observed separately. They form elementary particles of two types:

 baryons, built of 3 quarks (red + green + blue, or anti-red + anti-green + anti-blue) and
having thus zero (white) „color‟ charge and mandatory integer (0, +1e or +2e) electric
charge.
 mesons, consisting of 2 quarks (quark + anti-quark) and thus also having zero (white) „color‟
charge and mandatory integer (0 or +1e) electric charge.

The quark hypothesis helped to systematize the tremendous variety (~100) of already discovered
by the beginning of 1960s, as well as those that were discovered later) hadrons.

Very curious is the fact that the table listing all existing quarks looks confusingly (or inspiringly)
similar to that of leptons.

Symbol Type (aroma)* Charges Rest mass

electric color
mq/me
First Generation
d Down -1/3 RGB ~10
u Up +2/3 RGB ~6
Second Generation
s Strange -1/3 RGB ~200
c Charm (charmed) +2/3 RGB ~3,600
Third Generation
b Bottom (beauty) -1/3 RGB ~9000
t Top (truth) +2/3 RGB ~340,000
*Quark types the physicists call “aromas”: for example, they say down aroma, or strange aroma etc.

There are additionally 6 anti-quarks with the same rest masses and opposite (anti-) „color‟
charges.

It contains the same three „generation‟ of quarks, and only the first „generation‟ of quarks (as
well as only the first „generation‟ of leptons) are actually equipped in the structure of
surrounding us matter. Protons and neutrons consist exclusively of up and down quarks:
p = uud and n = udd. What for the second and third generation of quarks are necessary – this is
the question, as well as for the leptons.

Each quark may have any possible color - Red,

Green or Blue. Moreover, quarks are interacting
with each other by exchanging gluons which have
double-colors (for example – red + anti-green, or
blue + anti-red). Emitting or absorbing gluons
quarks are changing their colors (the „color‟ charge
conservation law must be fulfilled) and the sum of
colors of all quarks in a particle (3 in each baryon)
is always white – neutral. A consequence of such an
organization of strong interaction is the so-called “Quark Confinement”. Quarks cannot exist
separately. They can be observed only within the consisting of them particles – mesons or
baryons – in the process of intensive interactions with each other. That is why their rest masses
may be measured only indirectly. That is why those rest masses currently are known only
approximately. However, the existing physical research powerful instruments (such as LHC, for
example) allow us to penetrate deep into the structure of elementary particles (down to the scale
of ~ 10-18 m) and, basing on the results of this research, physics today does not doubt the
existence of quarks.

So, quarks, leptons and exchange bosons (carriers of the

interactions) form the deepest known today level of the
structure of matter which seems to be really the last,
elementary one. Still the variety of those elementary
bricks of the matter is quite big. However, there is one
unique common physical property (or entity) which
underlies all known or predictable elementary bricks of
matter. This entity is the energy, which can be considered
as the common and the final basic element of all the
existing matter. That we will discuss in the following
section of our course.