Particles overview

Particles overview

1. Leptons

   • Particles and antiparticles which do not interact through the strong interaction
   • Interact through the weak interaction or electromagnetic interaction if charged
   • Lepton rules
     • In an interaction between a lepton and a hadron, a neutrino or antineutrino can change into or from a corresponding charged lepton
     • In muon decay, the muon changes into a muon neutrino. In addition, an electron and an electron antiineutrino are created to conserve charge
   • Electron, muon and tau

2. Hadrons

   • Baryons
     • Baryons are made up of three quarks
     • Protons and neutrons are examples of Baryons. Protons have quark composition UUD and neutrons have quark composition UDD.
   • Mesons
     • Mesons are made up of two quarks. A quark and an antiquark.
     • Pion and Kaon are Mesons
       • K mesons decay into pi mesons, muons and antineutrinos
       • Charge pi mesons decay into muons and antineutrinos
   • Particles and antiparticles which can interact through the strong interaction
   • Interact through the strong interaction and through the electromagnetic interaction if charged
   • Decay through the weak interaction (apart from proton which is stable)