--------------------- #1512 - Getting Familiar with the Standard Model
- The Standard Model of Particle Physics has 34 fundamental particles defined that are the total composition of the Universe. Everything from soup to nuts in the Universe is made of this stuff. 17 of these are “matter particles” and 17 are “Anti-matter particles“. The Anti-matter particles are exactly the same matter particles except the Anti-matter particles have the opposite charge.
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- Anti-matter does not occur often in our natural world. The “ natural world” we are familiar with has only 17 matter particles. But, 5 of these 17 are force carriers that create force fields that are responsible for the 4 forces:
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------------------------------ FORCE ---------------------- PARTICLE
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------------------------ electromagnetic force ------------ photon
------------------------ strong nuclear force ------------- gluon
----------------------- weak nuclear force --------------- W and Z bosons
----------------------- Higgs Field that creates mass --- Higgs boson
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----------------------- Gravity is not included in the Standard Model but it has its own force field and force carrier yet to be discovered. The undiscovered particle is named the “ graviton”.
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- Of these 17 particles only two are massless, the photon and the gluon. Massless particles only move at one speed, the speed of light.
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- The particles that are force carriers are called “bosons“. The remaining 12 particles are called “fermions“.
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- 6 of these 12 particles are called “Quarks“. The 2 Quarks that are in our natural world, since they are at their lowest energy level, are the Up-Quark and the Down-Quark. These make up all the protons and neutrons that exist in the nucleus of atoms. The other 4 Quarks exist at higher energy levels and quickly decay to the lower energy levels. They are called Charm and Strange Quarks, and, Top and Bottom Quarks.
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- The other 6 of these 12 particles are called “Leptons“. The 2 that make up our natural world are the electron and the neutrino. The other 4 particles again exist at higher energy levels and decay back to the lowest energy level as soon as they can. The higher energy electrons are called Muons and Tau’s. The 3 neutrinos are called Electron Neutrino, Muon Neutrino and Tau Neutrino. All three neutrinos are nearly massless.
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- So, if you just look at the lowest energy level natural world, our entire “ universe” is made up of only 3 particles of matter ( Fermions) and 5 particles of force carriers (Bosons). The 3 matter particles are the electron, Up-quark and Down-quark. The 5 force carries are photons, gluons, W-bosons, Z-bosons, and Higgs bosons.
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- The last of these particles to be discovered is the Higgs Boson. It is very massive itself at 125 million electron volts / c^2. This particle creates the Higgs Field. When fundamental particles interact with the Higgs Field they acquire the property of inertia or mass.
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- The Higgs Field is somewhat analogous to the electric field. The fundamental particle to create this field is the photon. The electron has the electric charge and the photon is the force carrier to cause other like charges to repel and unlike charges to attract. The photon is a boson that carries the electromagnetic force.
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- We call all 17 of these particles “ fundamental”, but they may not be. They too may be made up of smaller more fundamental particles. See Review #1502 for a discussion about “ Preons”.
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- Some investigations are underway to decide if the electron is a fundamental particle, or, is it too made up of smaller particles?
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- One way to decide if smaller particles exist inside the electron is to measure the “spin” and magnetic moment very precisely. The electron has quantum spin of ½. Quantum means it has two distinct spins, either quantum spin-up +½, or, quantum spin-down - ½.
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- Because the electron is electrically charged if it is spinning it creates a magnetic moment. It has a north and south pole likes a permanent magnet.
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- Add energy to an electron creates a heavier particle called a “Muon“. adding more energy still creates a still heavier particle called a “Tau”. The three particles together are called “ Leptons”.
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- If an electron is fundamental, point-like, and not made up of smaller particles, it should have a single, and specific magnetic moment. If measurements of the electron and muon magnetic moments are able to find magnetic moments that differ from prediction, that result would strongly suggest that these particles are not point-like and are actually made up of still smaller particles.
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- Do Quarks and Leptons have a non-zero size? Do Quarks and Leptons, together called Baryons have symmetry? How about Matter and Anti-matter is there equal amounts of both?
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- Experiments to date show that the symmetry ratio of (Matter - Anti-matter) // (Matter + Anti-matter) must be less than 10^-10. The ratio of the difference over the sum is exceedingly small. Somehow, someway, there must be an excess of matter over Anti-matter or we would not be here to question it.
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- If an electron and an Anti-electron are brought together they annihilate each other in 100% electromagnetic radiation, Gamma Ray energy. E = mc^2, Energy = 90,000,000,000,000,000 * mass. Mass is just a lot of energy. Mass can turn into energy and energy can turn into mass.
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- If a proton and an Anti-proton are smashed together they annihilate each other into a mess of particles as well as energy. Protons are not fundamental, they are made up of Quarks. The proton is one Down-Quark and two Up-Quarks held together by Gluons, the force carrier for the Strong Nuclear Force.
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- The Anti-proton is one Down-Anti-Quark and two Up-Anti-Quarks. When protons and Anti-protons are smashed together you get a mess of particles. Physicists learn about the particles by studying the debris that flies off in all directions. Giant magnets divert the trajectories of charged particles. Calorimeters measure the amount of energy in certain particles. The total energy of all debris must add up to the proton and Anti-proton that you started with due to the Conservation of Energy. The search is for new physics, new particles that may be discovered. This is how the Higgs boson was discovered at CERN last July.
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- There also may be another force yet to be discovered. It is called a pseudo-force. It would have a force carrier particle that creates this pseudo-force field. It would be a “scalar field” that is uniform but without direction. In contrast gravity is a “vector field” because the force has a direction. “ Pseudo” means that it does not have a mirror orientation. Physicists are conducting experiments in Cal State East Bay hoping to discover this particle. A lot of particle physics data has already been accumulated. Physicists learn that six months of experiments can save them one hour in the library.
- An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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(1) Howard E. Haber, University of Santa Cruz, “ The Higgs Hunters Guide” 1990
(2) Derek Kimball, Cal. State University - East Bay.
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