CLASSIFICATION OF ELEMENTARY

PARTICLES

#Classification On the basis of “SPIN”: -

•Elementary Particles are categorised in two classes i.e. Bosons and Fermions: -

BOSONS

Introduction:
In particle physics boson is the type of particle that obeys the rule of Bose-
Einstein statistics. These bosons have quantum spin having integral value 0, +1, -1, +2, -2,
etc.
•History:
The name Boson comes from the surname of Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose
and physicist Albert Einstein. They develop a method of analysis called Bose-Einstein
Statistics.
In an effort to understand the Plank's law, Bose proposed a method to analyse the
behaviour of photon in 1924.He sent paper to Einstein. One of the most dramatic effect
of Bose- Einstein Statistics is the prediction that boson can overlap and coexist with
other bosons. Because of this it is possible to become a photon to laser.
The name Boson First coined by scientists Paul Dirac in the honour of famous
scientists Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein.
Regarding:
•Boson are fundamental particle such as gluons ,W ,Z boson, recently discovered Higgs
boson aka God particle and Graviton.
•Boson may be elementary like Photon or Composite i.e.made with two or more
elementary particle.
•All observed particles are either fermion or Boson.
Types of Bosons-
•Bosons are categorised into two categories;
Gauge Boson:
Gauge Boson are the particle that Carries the interaction of fundamental forces between
particles. All known Gauge Boson have spin 1 and therefore all Gauge Boson are vector.
•gauge boson is characterized into 5 categories.
•Gluons(g): That carries strong nuclear forces between matter particle.
•Photon( γ ): The particle of light that carries electromagnetic forces, which holds the
electron in an atom.
•W&Z Boson: It carries the week nuclear force, which involved in some form of radioactivity
and also plays the role in the How Sun Burn.
•Graviton (G): The only hypothetical gauge boson that carries the gravitational force because
how gravity work in quantum world is not very well understood.
Scaler boson:
• The only scaler boson which has been discovered is Higgs Boson.
•Higgs Boson: It is an elementary particle in standard modal of particle physics.
It is produced by quantum excitation of higgs field (field in particle physics theory).
It is the interaction with Higgs field which gives mass to the particle.
Properties:

•Bosons are mainly the force carrying particles. When bosons are exchanged
between two matter particle then their exist a force between them.
•For example,
Suppose you and your friend stand on two different small boats. Then you throw ball to
your friend in the other boat and your friend does the same. Imagine this happens
continuously, then your boat experience force towards each other. This experiment is actually
conducted by Feynman.
Similar to exchanging the ball between the two people, these bosons are exchanged between
two fermions.
•They are fundamental forces carrying particles. They include all forces of nature
(electromagnetism, gravity, weak nuclear force and strong nuclear force).

FERMIONS

•Introduction: -
•In particle physics, Fermions is particle that follows Fermi-Dirac Statistics and generally
has half odd integer spin 1/2,3/2,etc.
•This particle obeys Pauli Exclusion Principle.
•Fermion contains all quark and leptons as well as composite particle made of a odd number
of these such as all baryon and many atoms and nuclei.
•Fermions differ from bosons which obeys Bose-Einstein Statistics.
•A Fermion can be an elementary particle such as the electron or it can be an elementary
particle such as proton (which is made up of two up quark and one down quark).

What Makes Fermions So Special?

Fermions are sometime called matter particle, because they are the particle that
make up most of what we think of as physical matter in our world including proton, neutron
and electron.
History:
•Fermions were first predicted by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925.
•He was trying to figure out how to explain the atomic structure proposed in 1922 by Neils
Bohr.
•Bohr had used experimental evidence to build an atomic modal which contained electron
shell creating stable orbits for electron to move around the atomic nucleus.
•This matched well with evidence, there was no. of particular reason why this structure
would stable and that's the explanation that Pauli was trying to reach.
•He realised that if you assigned quantum number (later named as quantum spin) to
the electron.
•Then there seemed to be some sort of principle which means that number of two of the
electrons could be in exactly the same state.
•This rule become the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
In 1926, Enrico Fermi and Pauli Dirac Independently tried to understand other
aspect of electron behaviour and in doing so, established a more complete statistical way to
dealing with electron. Though Fermi developed the system first, they close enough and both
did enough work that posterity has dubbed their statistical method Fermi-Dirac Statistics.
•The fact that fermions cannot collapse into the same state, that's the ultimate meaning
of Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Types of Fermions:

•Fundamental Fermions

•There are the total 12 fundamental fermion (fermion which aren't made up of smaller
particles and that have been experimentally identified).

It divided into two categories:

•Quarks:
•Quarks are the particles that makes up hadron such as protons and neutrons.
•There are six-types of quarks: -
•Up Quark •Top Quark •Charm Quark
(*All these quarks have spin of +3/2e)
•Down Quark •Strange Quark •Bottom Quark
(*All these quarks have spins of -1/2e)

•Leptons:
•Leptons are subatomic particle that does not takes part in strong attraction.
•There are six-types of leptons: -
•Electron
•Electron Neutrino
•Muons
•Muon
•Muon Neutrino
•Tau
•Tau Neutrino

•Composite Fermions:
Beyond the fundamental fermions there is another class of Fermions which can be created by
combining Fermions together to get a resulting particle with Integral half spin.
•Baryons: These are the particle like proton and neutron that are composed of three
quarks join together.
(*For e.g. A Neutron-
It is composite of three fundamental particles which are two Down Quark and one Up
Quark.)

#Classification on The Basis of Rest Mass:

•It is categorised in Four Parts: -

1.Massless Boson: -
•Those particles have zero charge, zero rest mass & zero or integral spin are called massless
boson.
•These particles are stable and can travel in vacuum with speed of light.
e.g. photon.
2.Leptons: -
•Leptons means light weight.
•All the elementary particles which mass less then π-meson belongs to this category.
•All leptons spin half and they are call fermions.
e.g. Electron, Neutrino, etc.
3.Meson: -
•The word meson means that middle mass particle.
•These have rest mass larger than μ-meson are but less then proton.
•All the meson has zero or integral spin that’s why they are called as boson.
e.g. Pions(π+, π−,π0),Kaon(k+,k-,k0)
4.Baryons: -
•All the elementary particle which have rest mass equal to or greater then the mass
of proton are called as Baryons.
•These particles have half integral spin and hence they are Fermions
e.g. Nucleons, Hyperons.

By
Satyam Mishra
(M.Sc. – 1, Physics)
Department of Physics
B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane.