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Quark



 
 
Quarks ( or ) are a type of elementary particle
Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a wiktionary:particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles....
 and major constituents of matter
Matter

In common usage, matter is anything that has both mass and volume . A more rigorous definition is used in science: matter is what atoms and molecules are made of....
. They are the only particles in the Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 to experience all four fundamental forces
Fundamental interaction

In physics, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a field , and is mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons between particles....
, which are also known as fundamental interactions. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, single quarks are not normally found on their own; they can only be found in composite particles called hadron
Hadron

In particle physics, a hadron is a bound state of quarks. Hadrons are held together by the strong interaction, similarly to how molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force....
s, such as proton
Proton

The proton is a subatomic particle with an electric charge of +1 elementary charge. It is found in the nucleus of each atom but is also stable by itself and has a second identity as the hydrogen ion, H+....
s and neutron
Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutrons are usually found in atomic nucleus....
s.






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Quark Structure Proton
Quarks ( or ) are a type of elementary particle
Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a wiktionary:particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles....
 and major constituents of matter
Matter

In common usage, matter is anything that has both mass and volume . A more rigorous definition is used in science: matter is what atoms and molecules are made of....
. They are the only particles in the Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 to experience all four fundamental forces
Fundamental interaction

In physics, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a field , and is mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons between particles....
, which are also known as fundamental interactions. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, single quarks are not normally found on their own; they can only be found in composite particles called hadron
Hadron

In particle physics, a hadron is a bound state of quarks. Hadrons are held together by the strong interaction, similarly to how molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force....
s, such as proton
Proton

The proton is a subatomic particle with an electric charge of +1 elementary charge. It is found in the nucleus of each atom but is also stable by itself and has a second identity as the hydrogen ion, H+....
s and neutron
Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutrons are usually found in atomic nucleus....
s. For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been inferred from observations on the hadrons themselves. However as of March 6, 2009 statistical evidence collected by Fermilab
Fermilab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located in Batavia, Illinois near Chicago, Illinois, is a U.S. United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs specializing in high-energy particle physics....
 points towards the creation of singly produced top quarks.

There are six different types of quarks, known as flavor
Flavour (particle physics)

In particle physics, flavour or flavor is a quantum number of elementary particles. In quantum chromodynamics flavour is a global symmetry....
s
: up
Up quark

The up quark is a particle described by the Standard Model theory of physics. It is a first-generation quark with a charge of +elementary charge....
 (symbol: ), down
Down quark

The down quark is a first-generation quark with a charge of - elementary charge. It is the second-lightest of all the six flavour of quarks, the lightest being the up quark....
 , charm
Charm quark

The charm quark is a second-generation quark with an electric charge of + elementary charge. It is the third most massive of the quarks, at about ....
 , strange
Strange quark

The strange quark is a second-generation quark with a charge of −elementary charge and a strangeness of −1. It is the third-lightest quark after the up quark and down quarks, with a mass of somewhere between 80 and 130 MeV....
 , top
Top quark

The top quark is the third-generation up-type quark with a charge of +elementary charge. It was discovered in 1995 by the Collider Detector at Fermilab and D0 experiment experiments at Fermilab, and is the most massive of known elementary particles....
  and bottom
Bottom quark

The bottom quark is a third-generation quark with a charge of -elementary charge. Although all quarks are described in a similar way by the quantum chromodynamics, the bottom quark's large mass , combined with low values of the CKM matrix elements Vub and Vcb, gives it a distinctive signature that makes it re...
 . The up and down quarks have the lowest mass
Mass

In physical science, mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force....
es of all quarks, and thus are generally stable and very common in the universe. The other quarks are much more massive, and will rapidly decay
Particle decay

Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles. During this process, an elementary particle becomes a different particle with less mass and an intermediate particle such as W boson in Muon#Muon_decays....
 into the lighter up and down quarks. Because of this, the heavier charm, strange, top and bottom quarks can only be produced in high energy collisions, such as in particle accelerator
Particle accelerator

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electric charge Elementary particles to high speeds and to contain them....
s and cosmic rays.

Quarks have various properties, such as electric charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
, color charge
Color charge

In particle physics, color charge is a property of quarks and gluons which are related to their strong interactions in the context of quantum chromodynamics ....
, spin
Spin (physics)

In quantum mechanics, spin is a fundamental property of atomic nucleus, hadrons, and elementary particles. For particles with non-zero spin, spin direction is an important intrinsic degrees of freedom ....
 and mass. For every quark flavor there is a corresponding antiparticle
Antiparticle

Corresponding to most kinds of particle physics, there is an associated antiparticle with the same mass and opposite electric charge. For example, the antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged antielectron, or positron, which is produced naturally in certain types of radioactive decay....
, called antiquark, that differs from the quark only in that some of its properties have the opposite sign. Quarks are the only known particles whose electric charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
 comes in fraction
Fraction

In common usage a fraction is any part of a Units of measurement.Fraction may also mean:*Fraction , a quotient of numbers, e.g. "?"; or, more generally, an element of a quotient field...
s of the elementary charge
Elementary charge

The elementary charge, usually denoted e, is the electric charge carried by a single proton, or equivalently, the negative of the electric charge carried by a single electron....
.

The quark model
Quark model

In physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks, i.e., the quarks which give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons....
 was independently proposed by physicists Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann

Murray Gell-Mann is an United States physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of particle physicss.Among his many accomplishments, he formulated the quark model of hadronic resonances, and identified the SU flavor symmetry of the light quarks, extending isospin to include strange quark, which he als...
 and George Zweig
George Zweig

George Zweig was originally trained as a particle physicist under Richard Feynman and later turned his attention to neurobiology. He spent a number of years as a Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and MIT, but as of 2004, has gone on to work in the financial services industry....
 in 1964. There was little evidence for the quark model until 1968, when electron–proton scattering
Scattering

Scattering is a general physical process where some forms of radiation, such as light, sound, or moving particles,are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by one or more localized non-uniformities in the medium through which they pass....
 experiments indicated that the electrons were scattering off three point-like constituents inside the proton. By 1995, when the top quark was observed at Fermilab
Fermilab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located in Batavia, Illinois near Chicago, Illinois, is a U.S. United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs specializing in high-energy particle physics....
, all six flavors had been observed.

Classification

The Standard Model
Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions....
 is the theoretical framework describing all the currently known elementary particle
Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a wiktionary:particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles....
s, plus the Higgs boson
Higgs boson

In particle physics, the Higgs boson is a massive Scalar field theory elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model.The Higgs boson is the only Standard Model particle that has not yet been observed....
 (unobserved ). This model comprises six flavors of quarks, named up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. The top and bottom flavors are sometimes known as truth and beauty, respectively. In this context, flavor is an arbitrarily chosen term referring to different kinds of particles, and has nothing to do with the everyday experience of flavor
Flavor

Flavor or flavour is the sensory impression of a food or other chemical substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and olfaction....
.

In the Standard Model, particles of matter
Matter

In common usage, matter is anything that has both mass and volume . A more rigorous definition is used in science: matter is what atoms and molecules are made of....
, comprising quarks and lepton
Lepton

Leptons are a family of elementary particles, alongside quarks and gauge bosons . Like quarks, leptons are fermions and are subject to the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, and weak interaction....
s, are elementary
ELEMENTARY

In computational complexity theory, the complexity class ELEMENTARY is the union of the classes in the exponential hierarchy.The name was coined by Laszlo Kalmar, in the context of recursive functions and undecidability; most problems in it are far from elementary....
 fermion
Fermion

In particle physics, fermions are subatomic particle which obey Fermi-Dirac statistics; they are named after Enrico Fermi. In contrast to bosons, which have Bose-Einstein statistics, only one fermion can occupy a quantum state at a given time; this is the Pauli Exclusion Principle....
s, meaning that they have a half-integer
Half-integer

In mathematics, a half-integer is a number of the form,where is an integer. For example,are all half-integers. Note that a half of an integer is not always a half-integer: half of an even integer is an integer but not a half-integer....
 quantum number (a property related to their intrinsic angular momentum
Angular momentum

In physics, the angular momentum of a particle about an origin is a vector quantity related to rotation, equal to the mass of the particle multiplied by the cross product of the position vector of the particle with its velocity vector....
); as a consequence, they are subject to the Pauli exclusion principle
Pauli exclusion principle

The Pauli exclusion principle is a quantum mechanics principle formulated by Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. It states that no two identical particles fermions may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously....
, stating that no two fermions of the same flavor can ever simultaneously occupy the same state
Quantum state

In quantum physics, a quantum State is a mathematical object that fully describes a Quantum system. One typically imagines some experimental apparatus and procedure which "prepares" this quantum state; the mathematical object then reflects the setup of the apparatus....
. This contrasts with particles that mediate forces
Force carrier

In particle physics, the quantum field theory called the Standard Model describes the strong interaction, weak nuclear force and electromagnetism fundamental forces....
—the other particles of the standard model. Such particles are boson
Boson

In particle physics, bosons are subatomic particle which obey Bose-Einstein statistics; they are named after Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein....
s, meaning that they have integer
Integer

The integers are natural numbers including 0 and their negative and non-negative numberss . They are numbers that can be written without a fractional or decimal component, and fall within the set ....
 spin; as a consequence, the Pauli exclusion principle does not apply to them. Quarks, unlike leptons, have a color charge
Color charge

In particle physics, color charge is a property of quarks and gluons which are related to their strong interactions in the context of quantum chromodynamics ....
, a property causing them to engage in the strong interaction
Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction, or strong force, or color force, holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles....
. This interaction is the reason quarks attract each other to form hadrons. In the same way that the electric force is responsible for atom
Atom

|-! bgcolor=gray | Properties|-||}The atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central atomic nucleus surrounded by a electron cloud of electric charge electrons....
s attracting each other to form molecule
Molecule

In chemistry, a molecule is defined as a sufficiently stable, electric charge neutral group of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by very strong chemical bonds....
s, the strong interaction is responsible for protons and neutrons attracting each other to form atomic nuclei. But unlike the electric force which has infinite range, the strong interaction effectively only acts at close distances, comparable to or less. See nuclear force
Nuclear force

The nuclear force is the force between two or more nucleons. It is responsible for binding of protons and neutrons into Atomic nucleus. To a large extent, this force can be understood in terms of the exchange of virtual light mesons, such as the pions....
 for more details.

Elementary fermions are grouped into three generation
Generation (particle physics)

In particle physics, a generation is a division of the elementary particles. Between generations, particles differ only by their mass. All fundamental interactions and quantum numbers are identical....
s, each comprising two leptons and two quarks. The first generation includes up and down quarks, the second charm and strange quarks, and the third top and bottom quarks. All searches for a fourth generation of quarks and other elementary fermions have failed, and there is strong indirect evidence that more than three generations cannot exist: each generation comprises only one flavor of neutrino
Neutrino

Neutrinos are elementary particles that travel close to the speed of light, lack an electric charge, are able to pass through ordinary matter almost undisturbed and are thus extremely difficult to detect....
, and the existence of a fourth generation would imply values of the lifetime of the Z boson and the abundance of helium-4
Helium-4

Helium-4 is a non-radioactive and light isotope of helium. It is by far the most abundant of the two naturally occurring isotopes of helium, making up about 99.99986% of the helium on earth....
 in the universe that are at odds with experimental results. Particles in higher generations generally have greater mass and are less stable, tending to decay
Particle decay

Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles. During this process, an elementary particle becomes a different particle with less mass and an intermediate particle such as W boson in Muon#Muon_decays....
 into lower-generation, less massive particles by means of weak interaction
Weak interaction

The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons....
s. Only the first-generation up and down quarks occur commonly in nature; heavier quarks can only be created in high-energy collisions, such as in cosmic ray
Cosmic ray

Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, about 9% are helium nuclei and about 1% are electrons ....
s, and quickly decay. As a result, these particles play little part in the universe of today, but likely were much more prominent in an earlier, hotter universe. Most studies conducted on heavier quarks have been performed in artificially created conditions, such as in particle accelerator
Particle accelerator

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electric charge Elementary particles to high speeds and to contain them....
s.

Antiparticle
Antiparticle

Corresponding to most kinds of particle physics, there is an associated antiparticle with the same mass and opposite electric charge. For example, the antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged antielectron, or positron, which is produced naturally in certain types of radioactive decay....
s of quarks are called antiquarks, and are denoted by a bar over the letter for the quark, such as for an up antiquark. As with antimatter
Antimatter

In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles....
 in general, antiquarks have the same mass, lifetime and spin as their respective quarks, but the electric charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
 and other charge
Charge (physics)

In physics, a charge may refer to one of many different quantities, such as the electric charge in electromagnetism or the color charge in quantum chromodynamics....
s have the opposite sign.

Having electric charge, flavor, color charge and mass, quarks are the only known elementary particles that engage in all four fundamental interaction
Fundamental interaction

In physics, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a field , and is mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons between particles....
s of contemporary physics: electromagnetism
Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field which exerts a force on Elementary particles with the property of electric charge and which is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles....
, weak interaction
Weak interaction

The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons....
, strong interaction
Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction, or strong force, or color force, holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles....
 and gravitation
Gravitation

Gravitation is a natural phenomenon that gives weight to objects. In everyday life, attraction due to gravity is the result of the presence of relatively large bodies, such as the Earth and the Moon....
. Gravitation, however, is usually irrelevant at subatomic scales, and is not described by the Standard Model.

See the table of properties below for a more complete analysis of the six quark flavors' properties.

History

The quark model was first postulated independently by physicists Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann

Murray Gell-Mann is an United States physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of particle physicss.Among his many accomplishments, he formulated the quark model of hadronic resonances, and identified the SU flavor symmetry of the light quarks, extending isospin to include strange quark, which he als...
 and George Zweig
George Zweig

George Zweig was originally trained as a particle physicist under Richard Feynman and later turned his attention to neurobiology. He spent a number of years as a Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and MIT, but as of 2004, has gone on to work in the financial services industry....
 in 1964. At the time of the theory's initial proposal, the "particle zoo
Particle zoo

In particle physics, the term particle zoo is used colloquially to describe a relatively extensive list of the known elementary particles that almost look like hundreds of species in the zoo....
" consisted of a few lepton
Lepton

Leptons are a family of elementary particles, alongside quarks and gauge bosons . Like quarks, leptons are fermions and are subject to the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, and weak interaction....
s and a multitude of hadron
Hadron

In particle physics, a hadron is a bound state of quarks. Hadrons are held together by the strong interaction, similarly to how molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force....
s. Gell-Mann and Zweig posited that hadrons were not elementary particles, but instead composed of various combinations of quarks and antiquarks. They postulated three flavors of quarks—up, down and strange—to which they ascribed properties such as spin and electric charge.

The initial reaction of the physics community to the proposal was mixed, many having reservations regarding the actual physicality of the quark concept. Some believed the quark was merely an abstract concept that could be temporarily used to help explain certain concepts that were not well understood, while others believed that the quark was a physical entity.

In less than a year, extensions to the Gell-Mann–Zweig model were proposed when another duo of physicists, Sheldon Lee Glashow
Sheldon Lee Glashow

Sheldon Lee Glashow is an United States physics. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University....
 and James Bjorken
James Bjorken

James Daniel "Bj" Bjorken is one of the world's foremost theoretical physicists. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1954 and obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1959....
, predicted the existence of a fourth flavor of quark, which they referred to as charm. The addition was proposed because it expanded the power and self-consistency of the theory: it allowed a better description of the weak interaction
Weak interaction

The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons....
 (the mechanism that allows quarks to decay
Particle decay

Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles. During this process, an elementary particle becomes a different particle with less mass and an intermediate particle such as W boson in Muon#Muon_decays....
), equalized the number of quarks with the number of known leptons, and implied a mass formula that correctly reproduced the masses of the known mesons (hadrons with integer spin
Spin (physics)

In quantum mechanics, spin is a fundamental property of atomic nucleus, hadrons, and elementary particles. For particles with non-zero spin, spin direction is an important intrinsic degrees of freedom ....
).

In 1968, deep inelastic scattering
Deep Inelastic Scattering

Deep inelastic scattering is the name given to a process used to probe the insides of hadrons , using electrons, muons and neutrinos. It provided the first convincing evidence of the reality of quarks, which up until that point had been considered by many to be a purely mathematical phenomenon....
 experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Laboratories operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S....
 showed that the proton was not an elementary particle, but instead contained much smaller, point-like objects. While this showed that hadrons indeed had a substructure, as predicted by the quark model, physicists remained reluctant to identify these smaller objects with quarks. Instead, they became known as parton
Parton (particle physics)

In particle physics, the parton model was proposed by Richard Feynman in 1969 as a way to analyze high-energy hadron collisions. It was later recognized that partons describe the same objects now more commonly referred to as quarks and gluons....
s (a term proposed by Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was an United States physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics ....
, and supported by some experimental project reports). These partons were later identified as up and down quarks when the other flavors were beginning to surface. Their discovery also validated the existence of the strange quark, because it was necessary to the model Gell-Mann and Zweig had proposed.

In a 1970 paper, Glashow, John Iliopoulos
John Iliopoulos

John Iliopoulos, a Greek physicist born in 1940, was the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. Additionally, he was the first, along with colleagues Glashow and Luciano Maiani, to recognize the critical importance of a fourth quark, later known as the "Charm quark"....
 and Luciano Maiani
Luciano Maiani

Luciano Maiani is a San Marino citizen physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Glashow and Iliopoulos....
 gave more compelling theoretical arguments for the as-yet undiscovered charm quark. The number of supposed quark flavors grew to the current six in 1973, following proposition by Makoto Kobayashi
Makoto Kobayashi (physicist)

is a Japanese people physicist well-known for his work on CP-violation. His article "CP Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction" written with Toshihide Maskawa is the third most cited high energy physics paper of all time as of 2007....
 and Toshihide Maskawa
Toshihide Maskawa

is a Japanese people theoretical physicist well-known for his work on CP-violation. His article "CP Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction" written with Makoto Kobayashi is the third most cited high energy physics paper of all time as of 2006....
; the two had noted that the experimental observation of CP violation
CP violation

In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP symmetry, the combination of C symmetry and P symmetry. CP symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle is interchanged with its antiparticle , and left and right were swapped ....
 (a phenomenon that has been observed to cause changes in the way particles weakly interact
Weak interaction

The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons....
 when particle and antiparticle are swapped) could be explained if there were another pair of quarks.

Charmed Dia W
It was the observation of the charm quark that finally convinced the physics community of the quark model's correctness. Following a decade without empirical evidence supporting their existence, charm quarks were finally produced and observed almost simultaneously by two teams in November 1974 (see November Revolution): one at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Laboratories operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S....
 under Burton Richter
Burton Richter

Burton Richter is a Nobel Prize-winning United States physicist....
 and one at Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States United States Department of Energy National Labs located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S....
 under Samuel Ting
Samuel C. C. Ting

Samuel Chao Chung Ting is an United States physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1976, with Burton Richter, for discovering the Subatomic particle J/? particle....
. The two parties had assigned the discovered particle two different names, J and ?. The particle hence became formally known as the meson and it was considered a charm quark–charm antiquark
Quarkonium

In particle physics, quarkonium designates a flavorless meson whose constituents are a quark and its own antiquark. Examples of quarkonia are the J/Psi particle and the Upsilon particle ....
 pair that Glashow and Bjorken had predicted.

In 1977, the bottom quark was observed by Leon Lederman
Leon M. Lederman

Leon Max Lederman is an United States experimental physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics List of Nobel laureates for his work with neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois....
 and a team at Fermilab
Fermilab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located in Batavia, Illinois near Chicago, Illinois, is a U.S. United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs specializing in high-energy particle physics....
. This indicated that a top quark
Top quark

The top quark is the third-generation up-type quark with a charge of +elementary charge. It was discovered in 1995 by the Collider Detector at Fermilab and D0 experiment experiments at Fermilab, and is the most massive of known elementary particles....
 probably existed, because the bottom quark
Bottom quark

The bottom quark is a third-generation quark with a charge of -elementary charge. Although all quarks are described in a similar way by the quantum chromodynamics, the bottom quark's large mass , combined with low values of the CKM matrix elements Vub and Vcb, gives it a distinctive signature that makes it re...
 would have been without a partner if it had not. However, it was not until eighteen years later, in 1995, that the top quark was finally observed. The top quark's discovery was quite important, because it proved to be significantly more massive than expected; almost as heavy as a gold
Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
 atom. Reasons for the top quark's extremely large mass remain unclear.

Etymology

Gell-Mann originally named the quark after the sound made by ducks. For some time, he was undecided on an actual spelling for the term he intended to coin, until he found the word quark in James Joyce's
James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Ireland expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ....
 book Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake

Finnegans Wake is a work of Comic novel by Irish literature James Joyce, which is recognised for its difficulty for the reader and its experimental style....
:

Gell-Mann went into further detail regarding the name of the quark in his book, The Quark and the Jaguar:

Zweig preferred the name ace for the particle he had theorized, but Gell-Mann's terminology came to prominence once the quark model had been commonly accepted.

Properties


Hadronization

Various quark flavor combinations result in the formation of composite particles known as hadron
Hadron

In particle physics, a hadron is a bound state of quarks. Hadrons are held together by the strong interaction, similarly to how molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force....
s
through the process of hadronization
Hadronization

In particle physics, hadronization is the process of the formation of hadrons out of quarks and gluons. This occurs after high-energy collisions in a particle collider in which free quarks or gluons are created....
. There are two types of hadrons: baryon
Baryon

Baryons are the family of composite particle subatomic particle made of three quarks, as opposed to the mesons which are the family of composite particles made of one quark and one antiquark....
s, formed of three quarks, and meson
Meson

In particle physics, mesons are subatomic particles composed of one quark and one antiquark. They are part of the hadron particle family ? particles made of quarks....
s, formed of a quark and an antiquark. The quarks (and antiquarks) which determine the quantum number
Quantum number

Quantum numbers describe values of conserved numbers in the dynamics of the quantum system. They often describe specifically the energies of electrons in atoms, but other possibilities include angular momentum, Spin etc....
s of hadrons are called valence quarks. Apart from these, any hadron may contain an indefinite number of virtual
Virtual particle

In physics, a virtual particle is a particle that exists for a limited time and space, introducing uncertainty in their energy and momentum due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle....
 quarks, antiquarks and gluon
Gluon

Gluons are elementary particles that cause quarks to interact, and are indirectly responsible for the binding of protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei....
s which do not influence their quantum numbers. Such virtual quarks are called sea quarks (see below).

The building blocks of the atomic nucleus
Atomic nucleus

The nucleus of an atom is the very dense region, consisting of nucleons , at the center of an atom. Although the size of the nucleus varies considerably according to the mass of the atom, the size of the entire atom is comparatively constant....
—the proton
Proton

The proton is a subatomic particle with an electric charge of +1 elementary charge. It is found in the nucleus of each atom but is also stable by itself and has a second identity as the hydrogen ion, H+....
 and the neutron
Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutrons are usually found in atomic nucleus....
—are baryons. There are a great number of known hadrons, and most of them are differentiated by their quark content and the properties that these constituent quarks confer upon them. The existence of hadrons with more valence quarks, called exotic hadron
Exotic hadron

Exotic hadrons are subatomic particles made of quarks , but which do not fit into the usual schema of hadrons. While bound by the strong interaction they are not predicted by the simple quark model....
s, such as the tetraquark
Tetraquark

In particle physics a tetraquark is a hypothetical meson composed of four valence quarks. In principle, a tetraquark state may be allowed in Quantum chromodynamics, the modern theory of strong interactions....
s and pentaquark
Pentaquark

A pentaquark is an hypothetical subatomic particle consisting of a group of five quarks , or more specifically four quarks and one anti-quark and is represented by T....
s has been postulated. and several experiments have been claimed to reveal the existence of tetraquarks and pentaquarks in the early 2000s, but all the reported pentaquarks candidates have been established as being non-existent since. The status of tetraquarks is still a matter of debate.

Electric charge

A quark has a fractional electric charge value, either - or + times the elementary charge
Elementary charge

The elementary charge, usually denoted e, is the electric charge carried by a single proton, or equivalently, the negative of the electric charge carried by a single electron....
 (e). Specifically, up, charm and top quarks (collectively referred to as up-type quarks) have a charge of + each, while down, strange and bottom quarks (down-type quarks) have -. The antiquark have the opposite charge of their corresponding quark—up-type antiquarks have charges of - and down-type antiquarks have charges of +. Since the electric charge of a hadron is the sum of the charges of the constituent quarks, the combinations of three quarks, or three anti-quarks, or a quark with an anti-quark, always result in integer
Integer

The integers are natural numbers including 0 and their negative and non-negative numberss . They are numbers that can be written without a fractional or decimal component, and fall within the set ....
 charge.

The electric charge of quarks is important in the construction of nuclei. The hadron constituents of the atom, the neutron and proton, have charges of 0 and +1 respectively; the neutron is composed of two down quarks and one up quark, and the proton of two up quarks and one down quark. The total electric charge of a nucleus, that is, the number of protons in it, is known as the atomic number
Atomic number

In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the atomic nucleus of an atom. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z....
, and it is the defining difference between atoms of different chemical element
Chemical element

A chemical element is a type of atom that is distinguished by its atomic number; that is, by the number of protons in its atomic nucleus. The term is also used to refer to a pure chemical Chemical substance composed of atoms with the same number of protons....
s.

Spin

Spin is an intrinsic property of quantum particles, and its direction is an important degree of freedom
Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry)

Degrees of freedom is a general term used in explaining dependence on parameters, and implying the possibility of counting the number of those parameters....
. Roughly speaking, the spin of a particle is a contribution to its angular momentum
Angular momentum

In physics, the angular momentum of a particle about an origin is a vector quantity related to rotation, equal to the mass of the particle multiplied by the cross product of the position vector of the particle with its velocity vector....
 that is not due to its motion. It is sometimes visualized as the rotation of an object around its own axis (hence the name spin), but this description is somewhat misguided at subatomic scales, as elementary particles are believed to be point-like
Point particle

A point particle is an idealized object heavily used in physics. Its defining feature is that it lacks dimension extension: being zero-dimensional, it does not take up space....
 and so they cannot rotate around themselves.

It can be represented by a vector whose length is measured in units of h/(2π), where h is the Planck constant
Planck constant

The Planck constant , also called Planck's constant, is a physical constant used to describe the sizes of quantum in quantum mechanics. It is named after Max Planck, one of the founders of quantum theory....
. This unit is often denoted by h ("h bar"), and called the "reduced Planck constant". The result of a measurement of the component of the spin of a quark along any axis is always either h/2 or -h/2; for this reason quarks are classified as spin-
Spin-½

In quantum mechanics, spin is an intrinsic property of all elementary particles. Fermions, the particles that constitute ordinary matter, have half-integer spin....
 particles, which means they are fermions. The component of spin along any given axis—by convention the z axis—is often denoted by an up arrow ? for the value + and down arrow ? for the value -, placed after the symbol for flavor. For example, an up quark with a spin of + along the z axis is denoted by u?.

The quark's spin value contributes to the overall spin of the parent hadron, much as quark's electrical charge does to the overall charge of the hadron. Varying combinations of quark spins result in the total spin value that can be assigned to the hadron.

Weak interaction


A quark of one flavor can transform into a quark of a different flavor through the weak interaction, one of the four fundamental interaction
Fundamental interaction

In physics, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a field , and is mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons between particles....
s through which particles interact with each other. A quark can decay
Particle decay

Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles. During this process, an elementary particle becomes a different particle with less mass and an intermediate particle such as W boson in Muon#Muon_decays....
 into a lighter quark by emitting a W boson, or can absorb a W boson to turn into a heavier quark. This mechanism causes the radioactive
Radioactive decay

Radioactive decay is the process in which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by emitting ionizing particles and radiation. This decay, or loss of energy, results in an atom of one type, called the parent nuclide transforming to an atom of a different type, called the daughter nuclide....
 process of beta decay
Beta decay

In nuclear physics, beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which a beta particle is emitted. In the case of electron emission, it is referred to as beta minus , while in the case of a positron emission as beta plus ....
, in which a neutron "splits" into a proton, an electron
Electron

The electron is a subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It has elementary particle and is believed to be a point particle....
 and an electron antineutrino. This occurs when one of the down quarks in the neutron (composition ) decays into an up quark by emitting a virtual
Virtual particle

In physics, a virtual particle is a particle that exists for a limited time and space, introducing uncertainty in their energy and momentum due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle....
  boson, transforming the neutron into a proton (composition ). The boson then decays into an electron and an electron antineutrino . A quark can also emit or absorb Z bosons.

? + + (Beta decay, hadron notation)
? + + (Beta decay, quark notation)


Weak interactions can also allow quarks or hadrons to decay into completely different elementary particles through a process of annihiliation. For example, for the pi meson
Pion

In particle physics, a pion is any of three subatomic particles: , and . Pions are the lightest mesons and play an important role in explaining low-energy properties of the strong nuclear force....
 (composition ), a decay into a corresponding quark–antiquark flavor pair such as or would result in an annihilation of the quark–antiquark pair. The release of energy therein could effect the creation of the new lepton
Lepton

Leptons are a family of elementary particles, alongside quarks and gauge bosons . Like quarks, leptons are fermions and are subject to the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, and weak interaction....
s, such as muon
Muon

The muon is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with negative electric charge and a spin of . Together with the electron, the tau lepton, and the three neutrinos, it is classified as a lepton....
s or neutrino
Neutrino

Neutrinos are elementary particles that travel close to the speed of light, lack an electric charge, are able to pass through ordinary matter almost undisturbed and are thus extremely difficult to detect....
s.

As well as being the only interaction capable of causing flavor changes, the weak interaction is the only interaction violating parity symmetry. It affects only left-handed
Chirality (physics)

A phenomenon is said to be chiral if it is not identical to its mirror image . The Spin of a particle may be used to define a handedness for that particle....
 quarks and leptons, and right-handed
Chirality (physics)

A phenomenon is said to be chiral if it is not identical to its mirror image . The Spin of a particle may be used to define a handedness for that particle....
 antiquarks and antileptons, so its effects would be different if left and right
Left and Right

Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought was a libertarian journal published between 1965 and 1968. Founded by Murray N. Rothbard, Karl Hess, George Resch, and Leonard P....
 were swapped.

Cabibbo angle and CKM matrix
In 1963, Nicola Cabibbo
Nicola Cabibbo

Nicola Cabibbo is an Italy physicist, best known for work on the weak nuclear interaction. He was also the president of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare from 1983 to 1992, and since 1993 he has been the president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences....
 introduced the Cabibbo angle (?C) to keep track of how often certain weak interaction
Weak interaction

The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons....
 decays
Particle decay

Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles. During this process, an elementary particle becomes a different particle with less mass and an intermediate particle such as W boson in Muon#Muon_decays....
 occurred in nature. In light of current knowledge (quarks were not yet theorized when the angle was introduced), the Cabibbo angle is related to the probability that down and strange quarks decay into up quarks. In particle physics parlance, the down and strange quarks were said to form a weak interaction eigenstate, a quantum superposition
Quantum superposition

Quantum superposition is the fundamental law of quantum mechanics. It defines the allowed state space of a quantum mechanical system.In Probability theory, every possible event has a non-negative real number between zero and one associated to it, the probability, which gives the chance that it happens....
 of down and strange quarks quantum state
Quantum state

In quantum physics, a quantum State is a mathematical object that fully describes a Quantum system. One typically imagines some experimental apparatus and procedure which "prepares" this quantum state; the mathematical object then reflects the setup of the apparatus....
s (|d> and |s> respectively). Mathematically this can be represented in bra-ket notation
Bra-ket notation

Bra-ket notation is a standard notation for describing quantum states in the theory of quantum mechanics composed of bracket and vertical bars....
 as: where |d′> is the weak interaction eigenstate and both Vud and Vus are complex
Complex number

In mathematics, the complex numbers are an extension of the real numbers obtained by adjoining an imaginary unit, denoted i, which satisfies:...
 coefficients. The square
Square (algebra)

In algebra, the square of a number is that number multiplication by itself. To square a quantity is to multiply it by itself.Its notation is a superscripted "2"; a number x squared is written as x?....
 of the magnitude
Absolute value

In mathematics, the absolute value of a real number is its numerical value without regard to its Negative and non-negative numbers. So, for example, 3 is the absolute value of both 3 and -3....
s of Vud and Vus (|Vud|2 and |Vus|2) represent the probability that down and strange quarks decay into up quarks
Probability amplitude

In quantum mechanics, a probability amplitude is a complex number whose Absolute value squared represents a probability or probability density. For example, the values taken by a normalised wave function are amplitudes, since gives the probability density at position ....
. Using the currently accepted values for |Vud| and |Vus| (see below), the Cabbibo angle can be calculated using

The modern equivalent of the Cabibbo angle is a mathematical table
Matrix (mathematics)

In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers, as shown at the right. In addition to a number of elementary, entrywise operations such as matrix addition a key notion is matrix multiplication....
 called the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix (or CKM matrix), developed by Makoto Kobayashi
Makoto Kobayashi (physicist)

is a Japanese people physicist well-known for his work on CP-violation. His article "CP Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction" written with Toshihide Maskawa is the third most cited high energy physics paper of all time as of 2007....
 and Toshihide Maskawa
Toshihide Maskawa

is a Japanese people theoretical physicist well-known for his work on CP-violation. His article "CP Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction" written with Makoto Kobayashi is the third most cited high energy physics paper of all time as of 2006....
 in 1972. The CKM matrix keeps track of the weak decays of all six quarks.

The CKM matrix has additional features beyond the description of how often quarks of a flavor decay into quarks of other flavors. Kobayashi and Maskawa first built the CKM matrix to explain the violation
CP violation

In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP symmetry, the combination of C symmetry and P symmetry. CP symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle is interchanged with its antiparticle , and left and right were swapped ....
 of CP symmetry in weak interactions—weak interactions do not behave the same way if particles are replaced by their antiparticles (C symmetry) and if left is swapped with right (P symmetry). CP violation cannot be explained with one or two generations of quarks, but is possible with three or more generations (see CKM matrix
CKM Matrix

#REDIRECTCabibbo?Kobayashi?Maskawa matrix...
 for more details).

Currently, the best determination of the magnitude
Absolute value

In mathematics, the absolute value of a real number is its numerical value without regard to its Negative and non-negative numbers. So, for example, 3 is the absolute value of both 3 and -3....
 of the entries of the CKM matrix is approximately:

Strong interaction and color charge


Quarks possess a property called color charge. Despite its name, this is not related to colors of visible light, just as the property flavor is not related to taste. There are three types of color charge, named blue, green and red. Each of them is complemented by an anti-color; antiblue, antigreen and antired. Each quark carries a color, while each antiquark carries an anticolor.

The system of attraction and repulsion between quarks charged with any of the three colors is called strong interaction
Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction, or strong force, or color force, holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles....
. The area of physics that studies strong interactions is called quantum chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
 (QCD). A quark charged with one color value can be bound with an antiquark carrying the corresponding anticolor, while three quarks all charged with different colors will similarly be bound together. In any other case, the resulting system will be unstable. Quarks obtain their color and interact in this way via force mediating particles
Force carrier

In particle physics, the quantum field theory called the Standard Model describes the strong interaction, weak nuclear force and electromagnetism fundamental forces....
 known as gluon
Gluon

Gluons are elementary particles that cause quarks to interact, and are indirectly responsible for the binding of protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei....
s
, a concept which is further discussed below.

The three color types play a role in the process of hadronization
Hadronization

In particle physics, hadronization is the process of the formation of hadrons out of quarks and gluons. This occurs after high-energy collisions in a particle collider in which free quarks or gluons are created....
, which is the process of hadron formation out of quarks and gluons. The result of two attracting quarks that form a stable quark–antiquark pair will be color neutrality: a quark with ? color charge plus an antiquark of -? color charge will result in a color charge of 0—or "white" color—and in the formation of a meson. Analogous to the additive color
Additive color

An additive color model involves light emitted directly from a source or illuminant of some sort. The additive reproduction process usually uses red, green and blue light to produce the other colors....
 model, the combination of all three color charges will similarly result in a "white" color charge. This is what happens when quarks combine to form a baryon.

The properties of the color charge in quarks are explained by a gauge symmetry
Gauge symmetry

In gauge symmetry, 'gauge' means 'measure', and symmetry means 'stays the same'. Geometry is the study of the properties of objects that do not change when they move around....
 (a type of symmetry group
Symmetry group

The symmetry group of an object is the group of all isometries under which it is invariant with Function composition as the operation. It is a subgroup of the isometry group of the space concerned....
) known as SU(3), or a special unitary group
Special unitary group

In mathematics, the special unitary group of degree n, denoted SU, is the group of n×n unitary matrix Matrix with determinant 1....
 in three-dimensions. This concept of a symmetry group can be compared to the group consisting of the various states of a two-dimensional shape as it is rotated about an axis; in the same way, Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne'eman
Yuval Ne'eman

Yuval Ne'eman , was an Israeli soldier, Physics and politician, serving as a Minister during the 1980s and early 1990s. He was a self-declared atheist....
 realised in 1961 that hadrons could be grouped together into subgroups of 8 or 10 based on their symmetrical transformations and their similarities in quantum numbers. For example, the spin- baryons formed one octet, as did the spin-1 and spin-0 mesons, while the spin- baryons were in a decuplet. It was realised that these octets and decuplets were all derivatives of a basic triplet subgroup, and it was this realisation that lead to the proposal of the quark theory and the idea that hadrons had substructure. The triplet is now understood to correspond to the up, down and strange quark and the colors they can adopt.

This close connection between symmetries and interactions is present in all forces described by the standard model. The general description of these connections are called Yang-Mills theories.

Mass

There are two different terms used when describing a quark's mass; current quark
Current quark

Current quarks are also called 'naked' quarksand defined therefore as constituent quark cores of a valence quark.If in one constituent quark the current quark is hit inside the covering with large force,...
 mass
refers to the mass of a quark by itself, while constituent quark
Constituent quark

A constituent quark is a current quark with a covering.In the low energy limit of Quantum chromodynamics, a description by means of perturbation theory is not possible....
 mass
refers to the current quark mass plus the mass of the gluon particle field surrounding the quark. These two values are typically very different in their relative size, for several reasons.

In a hadron most of the mass comes from the gluon
Gluon

Gluons are elementary particles that cause quarks to interact, and are indirectly responsible for the binding of protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei....
s that bind the constituent quarks together, rather than from the individual quarks. While gluons are inherently massless, they possess energy, and it is this energy that contributes so greatly to the overall mass of the hadron (see mass in special relativity
Mass in special relativity

The term mass in special relativity usually refers to the rest mass of the object, which is the Newtonian mass as measured by an observer moving along with the object....
). For example, a proton is composed of one and two quarks and has an overall mass of approximately 938 MeV/c2, of which the mass of three valence quarks contributes around 11 MeV/c2, with the remainder coming from the quantum chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics

Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
 binding energy
Binding energy

Binding energy is the mechanical energy required to disassemble a whole into separate parts. A bound system has a lower potential energy than its constituent parts; this is what keeps the system together....
 (QCBE) provided by sea quarks and gluons.

Often, mass values can be derived after calculating the difference in mass between two related hadrons that have opposing or complementary quark components. For example, in comparing the proton to the neutron, where the difference between the two particles is one down quark to one up quark, the relative masses and the mass differences can be measured by the difference in the overall mass of the two hadrons.

The masses of most quarks were within predicted ranges at the time of their discovery, with the notable exception of the top quark, which was found to have a mass approximately equal to that of a gold
Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
 nucleus
Atomic nucleus

The nucleus of an atom is the very dense region, consisting of nucleons , at the center of an atom. Although the size of the nucleus varies considerably according to the mass of the atom, the size of the entire atom is comparatively constant....
, significantly heavier than expected. Various theories have been offered to explain this very large mass. The Standard Model posits that elementary particles derive their masses from the Higgs mechanism
Higgs mechanism

In quantum field theory, the Higgs mechanism is a way that the massless gauge bosons in a gauge theory get a mass by interacting with a background Higgs field....
, related to the unobserved Higgs boson
Higgs boson

In particle physics, the Higgs boson is a massive Scalar field theory elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model.The Higgs boson is the only Standard Model particle that has not yet been observed....
. Physicists hope that, in the next years, the detection of the Higgs boson in particle accelerators—such as the Large Hadron Collider
Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is the List of accelerators in particle physics#Hadron colliders particle accelerator, intended to Collider opposing Charged particle beam, of either protons at an energy of 7 TeV/particle, or lead nuclei at an energy of 574 TeV/nucleus....
—and the study of the top quark's interaction with the Higgs field might help answer the question.

Table of properties

The following table summarizes the key properties of the six quarks. Flavour quantum numbers (isospin
Isospin

In physics, and specifically, particle physics, isospin is a quantum number related to the strong interaction. This term was derived from isotopic spin, but the term is confusing as two isotopes of a nucleus have different numbers of nucleons; in contrast, rotations of isospin maintain the number of nucleons....
 (Iz), strangeness
Strangeness

In particle physics, strangeness, denoted as , is a property of particles, expressed as a quantum number for describing decay of particles in strong interaction and electromagnetic interaction reactions, which occur in a short period of time....
 (S, not to be confused with spin
Spin (physics)

In quantum mechanics, spin is a fundamental property of atomic nucleus, hadrons, and elementary particles. For particles with non-zero spin, spin direction is an important intrinsic degrees of freedom ....
), charmness (C), bottomness
Bottomness

In physics, bottomness also formerly called beauty, is a flavour quantum number reflecting the difference between the number of bottom quark and the number of bottom quarks that are present in a particle:...
 (B′) and topness
Topness

Topness , a flavour quantum number, is the number of top quarks minus the number of top anti-quarks that are present in a particle:Top quarks have a topness of +1 and anti-top quarks have a topness of −1....
 (T)) are assigned to certain quark flavours, and is useful in the context of hadrons. For exemple a sigma baryon
Sigma baryon

In particle physics, Sigma baryons are baryons containing a combinations of two up quark and down quarks, with a third quark being either a strange quark , a charm quark or a bottom quark ....
 has a strangeness of -1, therefore contains 1 strange quark. The baryon number
Baryon number

In particle physics, the baryon number is an conservation laws quantum number of a system. It is defined as:whereWhy one third? According to the laws of strong interaction there cannot be any bare color charge, i.e....
 (B) is + for all quarks, as baryons are made of three quarks. For antiquarks, the electric charge (Q) and all flavour quantum numbers (B, Iz, C, S, T, and B′) are of opposite sign. Mass and total angular momentum (J) do not change sign for the antiquarks.
Quark flavor properties
Name Symbol Mass (MeV/c2)JBQIzCSTB′ Antiparticle Antiparticle symbol
First generation
Up 1.5 to 3.3 0 0 0 0 Antiup
Down 3.5 to 6.0 0 0 0 0 Antidown
Second generation
Charm 0 +1 0 0 0 Anticharm
Strange 0 0 -1 0 0 Antistrange
Third generation
Top 0 0 0 +1 0 Antitop
Bottom 0 0 0 0 -1 Antibottom
J = spin
Spin (physics)

In quantum mechanics, spin is a fundamental property of atomic nucleus, hadrons, and elementary particles. For particles with non-zero spin, spin direction is an important intrinsic degrees of freedom ....
, B = baryon number
Baryon number

In particle physics, the baryon number is an conservation laws quantum number of a system. It is defined as:whereWhy one third? According to the laws of strong interaction there cannot be any bare color charge, i.e....
, Q = electric charge
Electric charge

Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interaction. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields....
, Iz = isospin
Isospin

In physics, and specifically, particle physics, isospin is a quantum number related to the strong interaction. This term was derived from isotopic spin, but the term is confusing as two isotopes of a nucleus have different numbers of nucleons; in contrast, rotations of isospin maintain the number of nucleons....
, S = strangeness, C = charmness, B′ = bottomness
Bottomness

In physics, bottomness also formerly called beauty, is a flavour quantum number reflecting the difference between the number of bottom quark and the number of bottom quarks that are present in a particle:...
, T = topness
Topness

Topness , a flavour quantum number, is the number of top quarks minus the number of top anti-quarks that are present in a particle:Top quarks have a topness of +1 and anti-top quarks have a topness of −1....
.
Notation like denotes measurement uncertainty
Measurement uncertainty

In metrology, measurement uncertainty describes a region about an observed value of a physical quantity which is likely to enclose the true value of that quantity....
: the value is believed to be between and , with 104 being the most likely value.


Color confinement and gluons

A key phenomenon called color confinement is thought to keep quarks within a hadron and prevent them from appearing in isolation. Color confinement is primarily caused by interactions with the gluon color field and the gluon exchange between quarks.

Color confinement applies to all quarks, with the possible exception of the top quark, whose behaviour with regard to this mechanism remains uncertain. Therefore, because all quarks are always confined, most of what is known experimentally about quarks has been inferred indirectly from the effects they have on their parent hadrons. The top quark is an exception because its lifetime is so short that it does not have a chance to hadronize. One method used is to compare two hadrons that have all but one quark in common. The properties of the differing quarks are then inferred from the difference in values between the two.

Quarks have an inherent relationship with the gluon, which is technically a massless vector
Vector field

In mathematics a vector field is a construction in vector calculus which associates a vector to every point in a Euclidean space.Vector fields are often used in physics to model, for example, the speed and direction of a moving fluid throughout space, or the strength and direction of some force, such as the magnetic field or gravity for...
 gauge boson
Gauge boson

In particle physics, gauge bosons are bosonic particles that act as carriers of the fundamental interactions of nature. More specifically, elementary particles whose interactions are described by gauge theory exert forces on each other by the exchange of gauge bosons, usually as virtual particles....
. Gluons are responsible for the color field, or the strong interaction
Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction, or strong force, or color force, holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles....
, that ensures that quarks remain bound in hadrons and causes color confinement.

Gluons are constantly exchanged between quarks through a virtual
Virtual particle

In physics, a virtual particle is a particle that exists for a limited time and space, introducing uncertainty in their energy and momentum due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle....
 emission and absorption process. When a gluon is transferred between one quark and another, a color change occurs in the receiving and emitting quark; for example, if a red quark emits a red–antigreen gluon, it becomes green, and if a green quark absorbs it, it becomes red. Therefore, while the quark colors continuously change, the forces of attraction are preserved.

The color field carried by the gluon contributes most significantly to a hadron's indivisibility into single quarks, or color confinement. This is demonstrated by the varying strength of the chromodynamic binding force between the constituent quarks of a hadron; as quarks come closer to each other, the chromodynamic binding force actually weakens in a process called asymptotic freedom
Asymptotic freedom

In physics, asymptotic freedom is the property of some gauge theory in which the interaction between the particles, such as quarks, becomes arbitrarily weak at ever shorter distances, i.e....
. However, when they drift further apart, the strength of the bind dramatically increases. The color field becomes stressed by the drifting away of a quark, much as an elastic band is stressed when pulled apart, and a proportionate and necessary multitude of gluons of appropriate color property are created to strengthen the stretched field. In this way, an infinite amount of energy would be required to wrench a quark from its hadronized state. In practice, as soon as enough energy has been spent to distance the quarks, a quark–antiquark pair would be produced
Pair production

Pair production refers to the creation of an elementary particle and its antiparticle, usually from a photon . This is allowed, provided there is enough energy available to create the pair ? at least the total rest mass energy of the two particles ? and that the situation allows both energy and momentum to be conserved ....
 so that two hadrons would exist at the end.

These strong interactions are highly non-linear, because gluons can emit gluons and exchange gluons with other gluons. This property has led to a postulate regarding the possible existence of a glueball
Glueball

In particle physics, a glueball is a hypothetical composite subatomic particle. It solely consists of gluon particles, without valence quarks. Such a state is possible because gluons carry color charge and experience the strong interaction....
—an object that is purely made of gluons—despite previous observations indicating that gluons cannot exist without the 'attached' quarks.

Sea quarks

The quarks that contribute to the quantum number
Quantum number

Quantum numbers describe values of conserved numbers in the dynamics of the quantum system. They often describe specifically the energies of electrons in atoms, but other possibilities include angular momentum, Spin etc....
s of the hadrons are called valence quarks . Hadrons also contain virtual
Virtual particle

In physics, a virtual particle is a particle that exists for a limited time and space, introducing uncertainty in their energy and momentum due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle....
 quark–antiquark pairs, known as sea quarks , originating from the gluons' strong interaction field. Such sea quarks are much less stable, and they annihilate each other very quickly within the interior of the hadron. When a gluon is split, sea quarks are formed, and this process also works in reverse in that the annihilation of two sea quarks will reproduce a gluon. In addition to this, sea quarks can hadronize into baryonic or mesonic particles under the right circumstances. There is a constant quantum flux of sea quarks that are born from the vacuum, and this allows for a steady cycle of gluon splits and rebirths. This flux is colloquially known as "the sea".

Virtual quark-antiquark pairs have a tendency to form a kind of colored "cloud" or "shield" around the valence quarks in hadrons. This cloud is complimented by another layer of virtual gluons that lies beyond it. These two clouds have the property of adopting color charges based on that of the valence quark. The intrinsic qualities of quarks and the way they respond to color cause the virtual antiquarks in the cloud, which exhibit the anticolor of the valence quark, to be closer to the inside of the field. For example, in a red quark, the antired virtual antiquarks would tend to be closer to the red valence quark than their red virtual quark partners. This disparity in proximity and the anticolor barrier it creates has the effect of "de-amplifying" the color charge of the valence quark. However, this anticolor tilt is neutralised by the virtual gluon field beyond, which carries the original color charge and "re-amplifies" the intensity of the valence quark's color. The cancelling of these two influences on the valence quark results in the balanced color charge that valence quarks have been observed to possess.

QCD matter and free quarks

A notion that has recently come to prominence is that of quark matter, or QCD matter, a number of theorized phases of matter containing free quarks and gluons. One of these is the quark-gluon plasma
Quark-gluon plasma

A quark-gluon plasma is a phase of quantum chromodynamics which exists at extremely high temperature and/or density. This phase consists of free quarks and gluons, which are the basic building blocks of matter....
. This model posits that, at sufficiently high temperatures and densities, quarks and gluons could potentially become deconfined and degenerate into a fluid-like plasma consisting of a non-uniform mix of gluons and quarks. The precise extremity of the conditions needed to give rise to this state are unknown and have been the subject of a great deal of speculation; CERN made many attempts to produce such conditions in the 1980s and 1990s. The symptoms of the state would variously include a great increase in the number of heavier quark pairs compared to the volume of up and down quark pairs. It is believed that, in the period prior to 10-6 seconds after the Big Bang
Big Bang

The Big Bang is the physical cosmology model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific method and observation....
 (the quark epoch
Quark epoch

In physical cosmology the quark epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe when the fundamental interactions of gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong interaction and the weak interaction had taken their present forms, but the temperature of the universe was still too high to allow quarks to bind together to form hadrons....
), the universe was filled with quark-gluon plasma, as the temperature was too high for hadrons to be stable. It is also hypothesized that strange matter
Strange Matter

For the physics concept, see Strange matter.Strange Matter is a children's book series created by Marty M. Engle and Johnny Ray Barnes Jr....
, that is non-nuclear matter containing relatively equal numbers of up, down and strange quarks, might also be stable at "ordinary" temperatures and pressures, in atomic nucleus-sized strangelet
Strangelet

A strangelet is a hypothetical object consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up quark, down quark, and strange quark quarks. The size would be a minimum of a few Fermi across ....
s and kilometer-sized quark star
Quark star

A quark star or strange star is a hypothetical type of exotic star composed of quark matter, or strange matter. These are ultra-dense Phase s of degenerate matter theorized to form inside particularly massive neutron stars....
s.

See also

  • Eightfold way (physics)
    Eightfold way (physics)

    In physics, the Eightfold Way is a term coined by United States physicist Murray Gell-Mann for a theory organizing subatomic baryons and mesons into octets ....
     – Gell-Mann's original classification of hadrons into octets.
  • Fundamental interaction
    Fundamental interaction

    In physics, a fundamental interaction or fundamental force is a process by which elementary particles interact with each other. An interaction is often described as a field , and is mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons between particles....
    s – Processes by which elementary particles interact with each other
    • Gravitational force – Attraction between bodies with mass
      • Quantum gravity
        Quantum gravity

        Quantum gravity is the field of theoretical physics attempting to unify quantum mechanics, which describes three of the Fundamental interaction , with general relativity, the theory of the fourth fundamental force: Gravitation....
         – The attempt to find a quantum theory for gravity
    • Electromagnetic force
      Electromagnetic force

      In physics, the electromagnetic force is the force that the electromagnetic field exerts on electrically charged particles. It is the electromagnetic force that holds electrons and protons together in atoms, and which hold atoms together to make molecules....
       – Force that the electromagnetic field exerts on electrically charged particles
      • Quantum electrodynamics
        Quantum electrodynamics

        Quantum electrodynamics is a relativity theory quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s....
         – The study of the electromagnetic force
    • Strong interaction
      Strong interaction

      In particle physics, the strong interaction, or strong force, or color force, holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles....
       – The interaction responsible for the formation of hadrons
      • Quantum chromodynamics
        Quantum chromodynamics

        Quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons ....
         – The study of the strong interaction
    • Weak interaction
      Weak interaction

      The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons....
       – The interaction by which quarks decay into other quarks
      • Electroweak theory – The unified theory of the weak interaction and of electromagnetism
  • Gauge boson
    Gauge boson

    In particle physics, gauge bosons are bosonic particles that act as carriers of the fundamental interactions of nature. More specifically, elementary particles whose interactions are described by gauge theory exert forces on each other by the exchange of gauge bosons, usually as virtual particles....
     – Force mediating particles
    • Gluon
      Gluon

      Gluons are elementary particles that cause quarks to interact, and are indirectly responsible for the binding of protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei....
      s – Particles mediating the strong interaction
    • Graviton
      Graviton

      In physics, the graviton is a hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravity in the framework of quantum field theory. If it exists, the graviton must be Mass in special relativity and must have a spin of 2 ....
      s – The hypothetical particles mediating the gravitational force
    • Photon
      Photon

      In physics, the photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation....
      s – Particles mediating the electromagnetic force
    • W and Z bosons
      W and Z bosons

      The W and Z bosons are the elementary particles that mediate the weak force. Their discovery has been heralded as a major success for the Standard Model of particle physics....
       – Particles mediating the weak interaction
  • Hadron
    Hadron

    In particle physics, a hadron is a bound state of quarks. Hadrons are held together by the strong interaction, similarly to how molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force....
    s – Particles made of quarks
    • Meson
      Meson

      In particle physics, mesons are subatomic particles composed of one quark and one antiquark. They are part of the hadron particle family ? particles made of quarks....
      s – Particles made of a quark and an antiquark
      • Quarkonium
        Quarkonium

        In particle physics, quarkonium designates a flavorless meson whose constituents are a quark and its own antiquark. Examples of quarkonia are the J/Psi particle and the Upsilon particle ....
         – Mesons made of a quark and antiquark of the same flavour
    • Baryon
      Baryon

      Baryons are the family of composite particle subatomic particle made of three quarks, as opposed to the mesons which are the family of composite particles made of one quark and one antiquark....
      s – Particles made of three quarks
      • Diquark
        Diquark

        In quark-diquark models, a diquark, or diquark correlation/clustering, is the hypothetical state of two quarks grouped inside a baryon [1]....
        s – A hypothetical state of two quarks grouped inside a baryon, treated as a single particle with which the third quark interacts
    • Tetraquark
      Tetraquark

      In particle physics a tetraquark is a hypothetical meson composed of four valence quarks. In principle, a tetraquark state may be allowed in Quantum chromodynamics, the modern theory of strong interactions....
      s – Hypothetical exotic mesons, made of two quarks and two anti quarks
    • Pentaquark
      Pentaquark

      A pentaquark is an hypothetical subatomic particle consisting of a group of five quarks , or more specifically four quarks and one anti-quark and is represented by T....
      s – Hypothetical exotic baryons, made of four quarks and two anti quarks
  • Lepton
    Lepton

    Leptons are a family of elementary particles, alongside quarks and gauge bosons . Like quarks, leptons are fermions and are subject to the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, and weak interaction....
    s – The other fundamental particles of matter
    Matter

    In common usage, matter is anything that has both mass and volume . A more rigorous definition is used in science: matter is what atoms and molecules are made of....
  • Parton
    Parton (particle physics)

    In particle physics, the parton model was proposed by Richard Feynman in 1969 as a way to analyze high-energy hadron collisions. It was later recognized that partons describe the same objects now more commonly referred to as quarks and gluons....
    s – Model used to analyze high-energy hadron collisions
  • Preon
    Preon

    In particle physics, preons are postulated "point-like" particles, conceived to be subcomponents of quarks and leptons. The word was coined by Jogesh Pati and Abdus Salam in 1974....
    s – Hypothetical particles which were once postulated to be subcomponents of quarks and leptons
  • Quark–lepton complementarity – Possible fundamental relation between quarks and leptons
  • Quark star
    Quark star

    A quark star or strange star is a hypothetical type of exotic star composed of quark matter, or strange matter. These are ultra-dense Phase s of degenerate matter theorized to form inside particularly massive neutron stars....
     – A hypothetical degenerate neutron star
    Neutron star

    A neutron star is a type of compact star that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II supernova, Type Ib and Ic supernovae supernova event....
     that is so dense it is considered a single giant hadron


Further reading



External links

  •  – A description of CERN’s
    CERN

    The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , , is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the France-Switzerland border, established in 1954 in science....
     experiment to count the families of quarks.