INTRODUCTION TO ELEMENTARY PHYSICS

ELEMENTARY PARTICLES

 Antiparticles
 Leptons

 Hadrons

 Mesons

 Strange Particles
ANTIPARTICLES
 Discovery attributed to Relativistic Quantum
Mechanics, Paul Dirac.
 Begins with Positron, to finally assume every particle
has an associated anti particle
 Names and properties of a few particle – antiparticle
duos.
LEPTONS

 Electrons
 Neutrinos

 Electron neutrinos and muon neutrinos

HADRONS

 Consists of Baryons and Mesons

 Baryons and Mesons are made up of quarks.

 Baryons are heavy weight : Protons and

Neutrons
 Mesons are middle weight: Pions, Gluons.

 Baryons consist of three quarks

 Mesons consists of a quark - anti quark pair.

STRANGE PARTICLES

 Types, names and properties of the strange

particles. Kaons, Sigmas, Lambdas etc.
 Explain Strangeness and its associated
number.
INTERMEDIATE VECTOR BOSONS

 W+ and W- Bosons, along with Z Bosons.

 Brief description.
THE EIGHTFOLD WAY
 Attributed to Gell Mann, the Mendeleev of elementary particle
physics, 1961.
 Diagrams and properties of the model, along with similar
particle properties.
 Meson octets and Baryon Decuplets.
THE QUARK MODEL
 Six Flavors: Up, down, Strange, Charm, Top, Bottom.
 Discovery and properties.
 Can be explained as triangular eightfold pattern.
 Chart of the Baryon Decuplet and Meson nonet.
THE STANDARD MODEL
 Lepton Classification in three generations, explanation
and chart
 Quark Classification in three generations, explanation
and chart.
 Force Carriers or Mediators.
 Eight Gluons of Strong Interaction
 Three Bosons of Weak Interaction
 Photons of Electro-Magnetic Radiations.
THE FOUR FORCES

 Strong Force
 Electromagnetic Force

 Weak Force

 Gravitational Force
QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS (QED)

 The only theory which is in complete agreement

with Relativity.
 All the elementary processes can be explained
using a method, called Feynman Diagrams.
 Diagrams of interaction.

 Some Description.
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS (QCD)
 It is the theory of Strong Interactions.
 The charge is replaced by color.
 Carriers are gluons, eight in number.
 Since gluons themselves carry charge, they can be
directly shown in Feynman diagrams, forming
glueballs.
 In QCD, the coupling constant is rather the running
coupling constant, depending upon the distance of
interactions.
 Screening of a charge by a dielectric medium.
WEAK INTERACTIONS

 Interactions arising of Leptons.

 Interactions arising of Quarks.