Nuclear Physics Course
Lecture 2
Tony Sumaryada, Ph.D
Standard Models
• Describe the fundamental particles and
interactions which govern matter
• Quarks and leptons the elementary
particles
• Each quark and lepton has an antimatter
partner antiquark and antilepton
• Quarks is spin ½ fermions which carry electric
charge and color charge
• Quarks never observed in isolation
More about quarks
• Baryon : the bound state
of three quarks
• Meson : the bound state of
two quarks ( quark and
antiquark)
• Three families of quarks :
• Light quark : up and down
• Medium quark : charm
and strange
• Heavy quark : top and Proton : u u d
bottom
More about quarks
• Particles which interacts
via a strong interaction is
called as hadron (including
baryon and meson).
• The charge of u, c, t quark
is +2/3
• The charge of d, s, b quark
is ‐1/3
Proton : u u d
Leptons
• Spin ½ particles (fermions)
• Point‐like particles (no structure)
• Never bound.
Forces (interactions) in Standard Model
• Each force is conveyed by a mediating (exchange) particle
• Weak force governs radioactive decay
• Strong force binds quarks in hadrons and nucleons in the
nucleus
• Gravitational force has not yet been incorporated into the
standard model
QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics)
• Describe the properties of strong interaction
• Color is define as property associated with
interaction (analogous to electric charge)
• Every quark carries a color charge or red,
green, blue
• Every gluon (exchange particle) also carries a
color charge.
QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics)
• Coupling between color carriers increase with
distance (opposite behavior as compared to EM
interaction)
• At large distance the QCD potential is large and
confines quarks inside bound state and
impossible to separate bound quarks
CONFINEMENT
• At very small distance the QCD potential is weak
and quarks behave as if they are unbound
ASYMPTOTIC FREEDOM
Confinement
• QCD is a confining gauge theory with an effective potential
• The energy required to separate quarks is greater than the
pair rest mass
• No one has ever seen a free quark
• The QCD potential between color carriers increase linearly
with distance ( K is the string tension)
Asymptotic Freedom
• At very small distance (large momentum
transfer Q) the QCD potential weakens
allows a perturbative calculations to predict
the behavior of the system (particle)
“You have to learn to crawl before you learn to walk”
Frank Wilczek
At APS April meeting 2005 : Hey I was there !
Asymptotic freedom
• Quarks behave as if they are unbound or free when
separated by only small distances
• This only possible in the system of extreme
temperature and/or density i.e in Neutron Stars
• This deconfined state known as the Quark Gluon
Plasma ( a soup of freely moving quarks and gluons)
Are you Interested in QGP ?
• RHIC (relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions) at
Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) New York
• Study the phase transitions in Neutron Stars
Cool stuff ….. QGP T‐Shirt
“May the strong force and
(asymptotic) freedom be with you”
Master Obi‐Wan Kenobi
Baryon and Mesons
Isospin, Charge and Parity
• Isospin is defined as :
• Charge as :
with
• Parity as :
Baryon
• Low lying states of baryon (Decuplet)
• Why all those deltas particles have the same
mass four different charged state
Baryon Octet
Meson nonet
• Combinations of one u, d or s quarks and one
u, d, or s antiquark in JP = 0− configuration
form a nonet.
Meson nonet
• Combinations of one u, d or s quarks and one
u, d, or s antiquark in JP = 1− configuration also
form a nonet.