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Eta Meson
The eta () and eta prime meson () are isosinglet mesons made of a mixture of up, down and strange quarks and their antiquarks. The charmed eta meson () and bottom eta meson () are similar forms of quarkonium; they have the same spin and parity as the (light) defined, but are made of charm quarks and bottom quarks respectively. The top quark is too heavy to form a similar meson, due to its very fast decay. General The eta was discovered in pion–nucleon collisions at the Bevatron in 1961 by A. Pevsner ''et al''. at a time when the proposal of the Eightfold Way was leading to predictions and discoveries of new particles from symmetry considerations. The difference between the mass of the and that of the is larger than the quark model can naturally explain. This “ η–η′ puzzle ” can be resolved by the 't Hooft instanton mechanism, whose realization is also known as the Witten–Veneziano mechanism. Specifically, in QCD, the higher mass of the is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bosonic
In particle physics, a boson ( ) is a subatomic particle whose spin quantum number has an integer value (0,1,2 ...). Bosons form one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particle, the other being fermions, which have odd half-integer spin (,, ...). Every observed subatomic particle is either a boson or a fermion. Bosons are named after physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. Some bosons are elementary particles and occupy a special role in particle physics unlike that of fermions, which are sometimes described as the constituents of "ordinary matter". Some elementary bosons (for example, gluons) act as force carriers, which give rise to forces between other particles, while one (the Higgs boson) gives rise to the phenomenon of mass. Other bosons, such as mesons, are composite particles made up of smaller constituents. Outside the realm of particle physics, superfluidity arises because composite bosons (bose particles), such as low temperature helium-4 atoms, follow Bose–Eins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parity (physics)
In physics, a parity transformation (also called parity inversion) is the flip in the sign of ''one'' spatial coordinate. In three dimensions, it can also refer to the simultaneous flip in the sign of all three spatial coordinates (a point reflection): :\mathbf: \beginx\\y\\z\end \mapsto \begin-x\\-y\\-z\end. It can also be thought of as a test for chirality of a physical phenomenon, in that a parity inversion transforms a phenomenon into its mirror image. All fundamental interactions of elementary particles, with the exception of the weak interaction, are symmetric under parity. The weak interaction is chiral and thus provides a means for probing chirality in physics. In interactions that are symmetric under parity, such as electromagnetism in atomic and molecular physics, parity serves as a powerful controlling principle underlying quantum transitions. A matrix representation of P (in any number of dimensions) has determinant equal to −1, and hence is distinct from a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Angular Momentum
In quantum mechanics, the total angular momentum quantum number parametrises the total angular momentum of a given particle, by combining its orbital angular momentum and its intrinsic angular momentum (i.e., its spin). If s is the particle's spin angular momentum and ℓ its orbital angular momentum vector, the total angular momentum j is \mathbf j = \mathbf s + \boldsymbol ~. The associated quantum number is the main total angular momentum quantum number ''j''. It can take the following range of values, jumping only in integer steps: , \ell - s, \le j \le \ell + s where ''ℓ'' is the azimuthal quantum number (parameterizing the orbital angular momentum) and ''s'' is the spin quantum number (parameterizing the spin). The relation between the total angular momentum vector j and the total angular momentum quantum number ''j'' is given by the usual relation (see angular momentum quantum number) \Vert \mathbf j \Vert = \sqrt \, \hbar The vector's ''z''-projection is given by j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiral Anomaly
In theoretical physics, a chiral anomaly is the anomalous nonconservation of a chiral current. In everyday terms, it is equivalent to a sealed box that contained equal numbers of left and right-handed bolts, but when opened was found to have more left than right, or vice versa. Such events are expected to be prohibited according to classical conservation laws, but it is known there must be ways they can be broken, because we have evidence of charge–parity non-conservation ("CP violation"). It is possible that other imbalances have been caused by breaking of a ''chiral law'' of this kind. Many physicists suspect that the fact that the observable universe contains more matter than antimatter is caused by a chiral anomaly. Research into chiral symmetry breaking laws is a major endeavor in particle physics research at this time. Informal introduction The chiral anomaly originally referred to the anomalous decay rate of the neutral pion, as computed in the current algebra of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instanton
An instanton (or pseudoparticle) is a notion appearing in theoretical and mathematical physics. An instanton is a classical solution to equations of motion with a finite, non-zero action, either in quantum mechanics or in quantum field theory. More precisely, it is a solution to the equations of motion of the classical field theory on a Euclidean spacetime. In such quantum theories, solutions to the equations of motion may be thought of as critical points of the action. The critical points of the action may be local maxima of the action, local minima, or saddle points. Instantons are important in quantum field theory because: * they appear in the path integral as the leading quantum corrections to the classical behavior of a system, and * they can be used to study the tunneling behavior in various systems such as a Yang–Mills theory. Relevant to dynamics, families of instantons permit that instantons, i.e. different critical points of the equation of motion, be related ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
QCD Vacuum
In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type of quantum field theory called a non-abelian gauge theory, with symmetry group SU(3). The QCD analog of electric charge is a property called ''color''. Gluons are the force carriers of the theory, just as photons are for the electromagnetic force in quantum electrodynamics. The theory is an important part of the Standard Model of particle physics. A large body of experimental evidence for QCD has been gathered over the years. QCD exhibits three salient properties: * Color confinement. Due to the force between two color charges remaining constant as they are separated, the energy grows until a quark–antiquark pair is spontaneously produced, turning the initial hadron into a pair of hadrons instead of isolating a color charge. Although an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quark Model
In particle physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks—the quarks and antiquarks which give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons. The quark model underlies "flavor SU(3)", or the Eightfold Way, the successful classification scheme organizing the large number of lighter hadrons that were being discovered starting in the 1950s and continuing through the 1960s. It received experimental verification beginning in the late 1960s and is a valid effective classification of them to date. The model was independently proposed by physicists Murray Gell-Mann, who dubbed them "quarks" in a concise paper, and George Zweig, who suggested "aces" in a longer manuscript. André Petermann also touched upon the central ideas from 1963 to 1965, without as much quantitative substantiation. Today, the model has essentially been absorbed as a component of the established quantum field theory of strong and electroweak particle interactions, d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aihud Pevsner
Aihud Pevsner (December 18, 1925 – June 17, 2018) was an American experimental physicist who was the lead researcher credited with the discovery of the Eta meson. Born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, to Yoshua Pevsner and Esther Ben-Yeshaia, Aihud Pevsner immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of three. The family, of Belarusian-Jewish descent, settled in New York. Pevsner served in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1945, and married Lucille Wolf in 1949. Upon earning a doctorate in physics from Columbia University, he began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1956, Pevsner joined the Johns Hopkins University faculty. Over the course of his career, Pevsner received two Guggenheim fellowships, was named a Fulbright Scholar, and granted fellowship by the American Physical Society. He was the lead researcher credited with the discovery of the Eta meson The eta () and eta prime meson () are isosinglet mesons made of a mixture of up, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bevatron
The Bevatron was a particle accelerator — specifically, a weak-focusing proton synchrotron — at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S., which began operating in 1954. The antiproton was discovered there in 1955, resulting in the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics for Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain. It accelerated protons into a fixed target, and was named for its ability to impart energies of billions of eV. (Billions of eV Synchrotron.) Antiprotons At the time the Bevatron was designed, it was strongly suspected, but not known, that each particle had a corresponding anti-particle of opposite charge, identical in all other respects, a property known as charge symmetry. The anti-electron, or positron, had been first observed in the early 1930s and theoretically understood as a consequence of the Dirac equation at about the same time. Following World War II, positive and negative muons and pions were observed in cosmic-ray interactions seen in cloud chambe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nucleon
In physics and chemistry, a nucleon is either a proton or a neutron, considered in its role as a component of an atomic nucleus. The number of nucleons in a nucleus defines the atom's mass number (nucleon number). Until the 1960s, nucleons were thought to be elementary particles, not made up of smaller parts. Now they are known to be composite particles, made of three quarks bound together by the strong interaction. The interaction between two or more nucleons is called internucleon interaction or nuclear force, which is also ultimately caused by the strong interaction. (Before the discovery of quarks, the term "strong interaction" referred to just internucleon interactions.) Nucleons sit at the boundary where particle physics and nuclear physics overlap. Particle physics, particularly quantum chromodynamics, provides the fundamental equations that describe the properties of quarks and of the strong interaction. These equations describe quantitatively how quarks can bind toget ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pion
In particle physics, a pion (or a pi meson, denoted with the Greek letter pi: ) is any of three subatomic particles: , , and . Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is therefore a meson. Pions are the lightest mesons and, more generally, the lightest hadrons. They are unstable, with the charged pions and decaying after a mean lifetime of 26.033 nanoseconds ( seconds), and the neutral pion decaying after a much shorter lifetime of 85 attoseconds ( seconds). Charged pions most often decay into muons and muon neutrinos, while neutral pions generally decay into gamma rays. The exchange of virtual pions, along with vector, rho and omega mesons, provides an explanation for the residual strong force between nucleons. Pions are not produced in radioactive decay, but commonly are in high-energy collisions between hadrons. Pions also result from some matter–antimatter annihilation events. All types of pions are also produced in natural processes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
