Introduction to Particle

Physics
• Ancient Greeks:
Earth, Air, Fire, Water.

• By 1900, nearly 100 elements.

• By 1936, back to three particles:

proton, neutron, electron
What are the
Elementary
Constituents
of Matter?
What are the forces
that control their
behaviour at the
most basic level?
 1911
Rutherford found a nucleus in
the atom by firing alpha
particles at gold and observing
them bounce back
Precursor of modern scattering experiments at accelerator
 Atoms Are Composite Objects

• Nucleus is ten thousand times smaller than atom.

• Protons (+ electric charge), p
• Electrons (– electric charge), e
• Neutrons (no charge), n

• Proton and Neutron have about the same mass

• Electron is about 2000 times less massive than
proton.

• Electrical Forces produce attraction between

electrons and the protons.
What is particle physics or high energy physics (HEP)?
 Studies elementary constituents of matter and radiation, and interactions
between them.
 An elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle not known to
have sub-structure
 Many elementary particles do not occur under normal circumstances, but
can be created and detected during energetic collisions.
 Some particles lasted only billionths of a second after the Big Bang.
History of the particle physics
 The discovery of the atomic nucleus: gold foil experiment
 Discovery of proton (1919) and neutron (1932).
 Quantum physics (1920) explain the structure of the atom.
 Based on electromagnetism one would expect the protons to repel each
other.
 Yukawa (1930) proposed meson theory of nuclear forces eventually known
as the strong nuclear force mediated by mesons.
 What holds the nucleus together?
 Electrical charges interact, and like charges repel
 Opposites attract, of course
 The closer they get, the more protons in the nucleus
should be repelled from each other!
 Something must serve as the glue to hold the nucleus
together
 The “strong” nuclear force: overcomes the electrical “Coulomb” force at
short distances

Search for fundamental particles !!!

Are protons and neutrons fundamental?
 1930s, Fermi postulated neutrino for β-decay.
 Separately, positron and muon were discovered by
Anderson.
 Yukawa's meson discovered in the form of the pion in 1947
 1950-1960’s, a huge variety of additional particles was found
in scattering experiments. This was referred as "particle zoo".

What about sub-structure in protons and

neutrons?

“Deep inelastic Scattering” experiments

indicate the electrons occasionally strike
hard in the proton
Quarks !
Scale of the atom

 Quarks and electrons are at least ten

thousand times smaller than nucleus, they
might literally be points.
Electrons Appear to be Fundamental
 As far as we can tell, electrons have
no ingredients
 The lack of substructure makes them
useful probes for other particles
 Electron microscopes
 Particle accelerators
 The Elementary Particles are “Related”
• Electric charge of electron and proton are equal and
opposite, to remarkable accuracy
• Neutron left alone for 15 minutes will ‘Beta-decay’ into e, p,
and neutrino

proton
electron
neutron

neutrino
 But that’s not all!
 Antimatter : Each elementary particle has an “antimatter”
counterpart
Electron – Positron
Proton – Antiproton
Neutron – Antineutron
etc. - anti-etc.

 E=mc2 says matter and energy are inter-changeable.

 If they find one another – major fireworks!

•Atoms and sub-atomic particles are much smaller than visible light wave-length.
Therefore, we cannot really “see” them.

•To learn about the sub-atomic structure we need particle accelerators

Particle Colliders CERN,
Switzerland
 Directing beams of
particles and
antiparticles at each
other at high energies
can make new stuff.
 It’s like reproducing the
Big Bang, but at lower
energies. Particle Accelerators are Big !
particle

antiparticle
Elementary Particles + Fundamental Forces
 The Four Fundamental Forces

20

Forces
Electro- Weak Strong Gravity
magnetic
atoms beta falling All Forces are
molecules decay nuclei objects Mediated by
optics planet Exchange Particles
electronics solar particles orbits
telecom. fusion stars
galaxies

inverse short short inverse

square law range range square law
 The 4 forces of Nature

Weak Electromagnetic
• Beta-decay •TV, PCs
• pp fusion • Magnets

• e- e+ creation
weak
charge Electric
charge

Strong Gravity
• Quark binding Responsible of
Keeping us
well-planted on earth
strong
charge mass
Which Fundamental Interaction/Force is
responsible for:
• Friction?
– Electromagnetic.
• Nuclear Bonding?
– Strong Nuclear.
• Orbiting Planets?
– Gravity.
• Which force carriers have not been observed?
– Gravitons
 Gravity

• Has a negligible effect on elementary particles

• A long-range force (as we learned earlier)
• Carried by the graviton
• This is by far the weakest of the 4 fundamental
forces
 The Electromagnetic Force
• Causes opposite charges to attract and like charges
to repel
• Carried by a particle called a photon
• It’s effects decrease with the inverse square of the
separation (as we learned earlier)

Photons
• Carry the electromagnetic force
• They have no mass
• Photons do not carry charge
• Photons do carry energy
 The Weak Force
• A very short-ranged nuclear interaction that
is involved in beta decay
• This is ten thousand billion times weaker
than the strong force (10-13)
• Effective only at distances 1000 times
smaller than the strong force
• This force is carried by the W+, W-, and the
Zo boson particles.
 The Strong Force

• The strongest of the 4 forces

• Is only effective at distances less than 10-15
meters (about the size of the nucleus)
• Holds quarks together
• This force is carried by gluons
Fundamental Forces Summary

hadrons
The Fundamental Interactions

22
 Quarks

• Elementary particles
• Used to create other
particles
• Six quarks:
– Up
– Down
– Strange
– Charm
– Bottom
– Top
Quarks detected within protons

Freeway 280

End Station A
experimental area
2 miles long accelerator

Stanford (SLAC), California, late 1960s

Fire electrons at proton: big deflections seen!
 Short-Lived Matter
 A zoo of particles (muon, tau, mesons, hadrons....)
 Confusion in the 1960’s – things seemed to be getting
worse!
 hundreds of “new” particles observed.

 Recognition in 1970’s, 1980’s that there was order to all

this mess
 Electron has two short-lived siblings (muon, tau), each has a neutrino
cousin (lepton family)
 Nuclear matter is made up of 6 quarks, arranged as three generations
with 2 members each
 Imagine all the combinations !

27
 The Standard Model of Particle Physics
• Standard Model:. The most widely accepted theory of elementary
particle physics
Framework which includes:
Matter
• 6 quarks
• 6 leptons
Grouped in three generations

Forces
• Electroweak:
- g (photon)
- Z0, W±
• Strong
- g (gluon)
Not gravity! No quantum
field theory of gravity yet..

It is a simple, comprehensive theory that explain successfully all observed phenomena

in the subatomic world so far, hundreds of particles and complex interactions with six
quarks, six leptons, and three force-mediating particles..
 All Forces are Mediated by Exchange
Particles
 Strong nuclear force – “gluons” (massive)
 Weak nuclear force – W, Z (massive)
 Electrical and Magnetic – photon (mass-less)
 Gravity – graviton (mass-less, although no one has yet
seen one)

 The range (extent) of the force depends on the mass of the

exchange particle (inversely related)

 the strong and weak forces are remote from everyday experience, being
mediated by massive particles
 Gravity and electromagnetic forces extend infinitely far (though weaken
with increased distance)
The Standard Model of Particle Physics

Basic Fundamental
Ingredients forces are
are quarks mediated by
and the photon,
electron- gluons, W’s
like objects and Z’s
(leptons) (bosons)

H= the missing ingredient: Higgs Boson

Which forces act on which particles?
 The weak force acts between all quarks and leptons
 The electromagnetic force acts between all charged
particles
 The strong force acts between all quarks (i.e. objects
that have color charge)
 Gravity does not play any role in particle physics

Weak EM Strong

Quarks √ √ √
Charged leptons √ √ –
Neutral leptons √ – –
 1 2
- 
3 3
1 2
- 
3 3
1 2
- 
3 3
 Quark Soup
 Combinations of quarks make up all the exotic
particles cataloged in the 1960s
 6 quarks, 6 anti-quarks, grouped in twos and threes
 Many dozens of combinations, only 1 or 2 stable
 Charges always come out in integer multiples
 Examples:
 Up, charm, top quarks have +2/3 charge
 Down, strange, bottom quarks have –1/3 charge
 2u + 1d (uud)  proton, with +1 charge
 2d + 1u (ddu)  neutron, with neutral charge
 Baryons and Mesons are made of other particles. These particles were
named Quarks
 That quarks and the electron (and a few other things we'll
see in a minute) are fundamental.
 Fundamental blocks
 Two types of point like constituents
 Plus force carriers
Generations of quarks and leptons
 Each set of quark and lepton types is called a
generation of matter (charges +2/3, -1/3, 0,
and -1 as you go down each generation). The
generations are organized by increasing mass.
 All visible matter in universe is made from first
generation of matter particles -- up quarks,
down quarks, and electrons.
 This is because all second and third
generation particles are unstable and quickly
decay into stable first generation particles.
•For every type of matter particle there also exists a corresponding antimatter
particle, or antiparticle.
•Antiparticles look & behave just like their corresponding matter particles,
except they have opposite charges.
 Quark masses
175 GeV
180
160 Top
E= mc2 (discovered 1995)
140
1 proton mass ~ 1GeV (10-27 Kg)
120
Mass 100
(GeV) 80
60
40
0.003 0.006 4.5
20 0.095 1.2

0
Quarks

Up Down Strange Charm Bottom Top

The mass grows larger in each successive family
The particles of ordinary matter
charge 0 +2/3

Leptons: ne u Quarks:
n = neutrino u = up
e = electron -1 -1/3 d = down

e- d

All stable matter around us

can be described using
electrons, neutrinos, u and d “quarks”
Protons and neutrons in the quark
model
Quarks have fractional electric charge!
u electric charge + 2/3
d electric charge -1/3

proton (charge +1) neutron (charge 0)

u u u d
d d
 2  2  1  2  1  1
u   u   d  -  = p 1 u    d  -  d  -  = n0 
 3  3  3  3  3  3
 3 Families (or Generations)
1st generation 2nd generation 3rd generation

0 +2/3 0 +2/3 0 +2/3

ne u nm c nt t
-1 -1/3 -1 -1/3 -1 -1/3
e- d m- s t- b
Ordinary matter Cosmic rays Accelerators
3 generations in everything similar but the mass

We believe these to be the fundamental building blocks of matter

 Is the whole Universe made only of
quarks and electrons?
No! There are also neutrinos!
n
Electron, proton and neutrons are rarities!
For each of them in the Universe there is 1 billion neutrinos
Neutrinos are the most abundant matter-particles in
the Universe!

Within each cm3 of

n n n n n nnnnnnnn 1 cm
space: ~300 neutrinos nn n n nn n nnnnnnn
n nn nn nn n n n n n
from Big Bang nn n n nn n nnnnnn
n nn nn nn nnnnnnn
nn nn n nnn nnnnnnn
nn nn n nnn nnnnnnn
1 cm
Neutrinos are everywhere!
in the outer space, on Earth, in our bodies..
•The neutrino (little neutral one) was discovered in 1956.

Neutrinos get under your skin!

Every cm2 of Earth surface is crossed
every second by more than 10 billion
(1010) neutrinos produced in the Sun
Within your body at any instant:
roughly 30 million neutrinos from the
Big Bang

1014 neutrinos
per second from Sun
n
are zipping through you

No worries!
Neutrinos do not harm us.
Our bodies are transparent to neutrinos
Just as the equation x2=4 can have two
possible solutions (x=2 OR x=-2), so
Dirac's equation could have two solutions,
one for an electron with positive energy,
and one for an electron with negative
energy.

Dirac interpreted this to mean that for

every particle that exists there is a
corresponding antiparticle, exactly matching
the particle but with opposite charge. For
the electron, for instance, there should be
an "antielectron" called the positron
identical in every way but with a positive
electric charge.
  -
g e e
1928 Dirac predicted existence of antimatter
1932 antielectrons (positrons) found in
conversion of energy into matter
1995 antihydrogen consisting of antiprotons and
positrons produced at CERN
In principle an antiworld can be built from
antimatter
Produced only in accelerators and
in cosmic rays
 Anti-matter
• For every fundamental particle of matter there is an anti-particle
with same mass and properties but opposite charge
Matter Anti-Matter

0 +2/3 -2/3 Bar on top

0
to indicate
ne u ne u anti-particle
-1 -1/3 +1 +1/3

e- d e+ d
positron

• Correspondent anti-particles exist for all three families

• Anti-matter can be produced using accelerators
 Matter vs. Anti-Matter
• For every particle, there is an anti-particle.
– Anti-particles have the same mass as the particle.
– Anti-particles have the same but opposite charge.
– Anti-particles have the opposite spin.

Particle Anti-particle
Name up quark Anti-up quark
Symbol u ū
mass 7.11x10-30 kg 7.11x10-30 kg
Charge +⅔ -⅔
Matter-antimatter pair creation
•Electron-positron pair created out of
photons hitting the bubble-chamber liquid

•Example of conversion of photon energy

into matter and anti-matter

•Matter and anti-matter spiral in opposite

directions in the magnetic field due to the
opposite charge

•Energy and momentum is conserved

Quantum numbers of quarks
Type of quark Charge Spin

u (up) +2/3 1/2

d (down) -1/3 1/2

s (strange), S = 1 -1/3 1/2

c (charm), C =1 +2/3 1/2

b (bottom), B = 1 -1/3 1/2

t (top) +2/3 1/2

 Neutron b-decay
At quark level: d→ u e- ne

u d n
15 min
p u u e- ne
d d
A (free) neutron decays after 15 min
Long life time (15min is an eternity in particle physics!)  “weak”

without such weak interactions the Sun would shut down!

 Fermions
• Fermions are particles that obey the Pauli
Exclusion Principle
• A fermion is any particle that has a half-integer
spin.
– Ex. 1/2, 3/2, 5/2
• Quarks and leptons, as well as most composite
particles, like protons and neutrons, are
fermions.
 Bosons
• Bosons are particles that do not obey the Pauli
Exclusion Principle
• All the force carrier particles are bosons, as
well as those composite particles with an even
number of fermion particles (like mesons).
• They have integer spins
– Ex. 0, 1, 2
 Leptons
• They are elementary particles
• Have no measurable size or structure
• Known leptons:
– Electron & electron neutrino
– Muon & muon neutrino
– Tau & tau neutrino
• The neutrinos do not have electric charge
• And each of the six has an anti-particle
 Electron, Muon, Tau
• All three have a charge of -1
• The electron is found in everyday matter
• The muon and the tau have a lot more mass
than the electron
• The muon and the tau are not part of
everyday matter because they have very short
lifetimes
 Neutrinos
• Neutrinos are three of the six leptons
• They have no electrical or strong charge
• Neutrinos are very stable and are all around
• Most neutrinos never interact with any
matter on Earth
 Hadrons
• Consist of particles that interact through the strong
force.
• Hadrons are set apart from leptons because they
are composed of other, smaller particles
• Separated into two categories
•Baryons & Mesons

• These are distinguished by their internal structure

• Most of the mass we observe in a hadron comes from
its kinetic and potential energy.
 Baryons

• Baryons are composed of three quarks

• All but two baryons are very unstable, they
are:
– The proton and neutron!!
• Most baryons are excited states of protons
and neutrons
• Other Baryons
 Protons & Neutrons

• Protons are made of three quarks, two up

quarks and a down quark

– This is written as uud

• Neutrons are also made up of three quarks,
one up quark and two down quarks

– This is written as udd

 Mesons
• Composed of a quark and anti-quark
• All are very unstable
• They are not part of everyday matter
• Have a mass between that of the electron
and the proton
• All decay into electrons, positrons,
neutrinos and photons.
 Baryons, Mesons, & Leptons
• These three types of particles were originally
categorized by their masses
• Baryons from the Greek for heavy
• Mesons from the Greek for intermediate
• Leptons from the Greek for light
• Now they are classified by internal structure
• Leptons are elementary particles
• Mesons are made of a quark and anti-quark
• Baryons consist of three quarks
Summary
 FLAVORS
Fundamental particles called quarks
come in six different flavors.

Flavor is the name scientists give to

different versions of the same type of
particle.

For instance, quarks (which make up the

protons and neutrons inside atoms) come
in six flavors: up, down, top, bottom,
strange and charm.

Leptons, a category that includes

electrons, also come in six flavors, each
with a different mass.
 Fractional charges and unseen quarks
 Murray Gell-Mann and George Zwieg proposed the idea of
the quarks to find some order in the chaos of particles:
 baryons are particles consisting of three quarks (qqq),
 mesons are particles consisting of a quark and anti-quark (q q-bar).
qqq Q S Baryon qqbar Q S Mes
uuu 2 0 Δ++ on.
uud 1 0 Δ+ uubar 0 0 0
udd 0 0 Δ0 udbar 1 0 +
ddd -1 0 Δ- ubar d -1 0 -
uus 1 -1 Σ*+ ddbar 0 0 η
uds 0 -1 Σ*0 uus 1 -1 K+
dds -1 -1 Σ*- uds 0 -1 K0
uss 0 -2 Ξ*0 dds -1 -1 K-
dss -1 -2 Ξ*0 uss 0 -2 K0
sss -1 -3 Ω- dss -1 -2 η’
 Fractional charges and unseen quarks
 Problems arose with introducing quarks:
 Fractional charge – never seen before
 Quarks are not observable
 Not all quark combinations exist in nature
 It appears to violate the Pauli exclusion principle
 Originally was formulated for two electrons.
 Later realized that the same rule applies to all particles with spin ½.
 Consider D++(uuu): is supposed to consist of three u quarks in the
same state – inconsistent with Pauli principle!
 Quarks
• Each quark has an anti-particle
• Quarks have a physical property called color,
it could be blue, green or red
• Each color also has an anti-color
• They are not really different colors, it is a
property, like charge
• Quarks cannot exist individually because the
color force increases as they are pulled apart.
 Strong interactions
 Quarks have electromagnetic charge
 They also have an altogether different kind of charge called color charge.
 The force between color-charged particles is very strong.
 The strong force holds quarks together to form hadrons, so its carrier
particles called gluons because they so tightly "glue" quarks together.
 Color charge behaves differently than electromagnetic charge.
 Gluons, themselves, have color charge.
 Quarks have color charge, composite particles made out of quarks have no
net color charge (they are color neutral)
 Color charge
 There are three color charges and three corresponding anticolor
(complementary color) charges.

 Each quark has one of the three color charges and each antiquark has one
of the three anticolor charges.
 Just as a mix of red, green, and blue light yields white light, in a baryon a
combination of "red," "green," and "blue" color charges is color neutral, and
in an antibaryon "antired," "antigreen," and "antiblue" is also color neutral.
 Mesons are color neutral because they carry combinations such as "red"
and "anti-red.“
 Because gluon-emission and -absorption always changes color, and -in
addition - color is a conserved quantity - gluons can be thought of as
carrying a color and an anticolor charge.
 Since there are nine possible color-anticolor combinations we might expect
nine different gluon charges, but only eight combinations. Unfortunately,
there is no intuitive explanation for this result.
 Quarks and colour
All quark flavours come in 3 versions, called “colours”

uu up dd down

u +2/3
d -1/3

Quarks combine together to form colourless particles

-Baryons (three quarks: red+ green + blue = white)

proton Strong forces

p “glue” quarks
together in
bound states

-Mesons (quark-antiquark pair)

such as red+anti-red (u-ubar state) pion u

u
Color charge
 When two quarks close to one another, they exchange
gluons and create a very strong color force field that binds
the quarks together.
 The force field gets stronger as the quarks get further apart.
 Quarks constantly change their color charges as they
exchange gluons with other quarks.

g
q q

Anti-red-green gluon transforms the

red quark into the green quark
 Color charge of quarks
 They proposed that quarks can have three color charges.
 This type of charge was called "color" because certain
combinations of quark colors would be "neutral" in the
sense that three ordinary colors can yield white, a neutral
color.
 Only particles that are color neutral can exist, which is why
only qqq and q q-bar are seen.
 This also resolve a problem with Pauli principle

Just like the combination of red and blue gives purple,

the combination of certain colors
give white.
One example is the combination of red, green and
blue.
 E
m= 2
c

Particle
zoo
 _
27 Co28 Ni  -1e 0 
60 60 0 0

Q = -1e almost all trapped in atoms

Q= 0 all freely moving through universe

g rays  e   e -
 -
e  e  2hf
 Cockroft and Walton
•First artificial splitting of
nucleus
•First transmutation using
artificially accelerated John Cockcroft Ernest Walton

particles
•First experimental verification
of E = mc 2

Irish Nobel Prize

E.T.S. Walton 1951

+

+
 CERN LEP APPLET
http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/masterclass/Acc_sim2/simulator.html
 Spin: a property of particle
 Spin is a value of angular momentum assigned to all particles.
 When a top spins, it has a certain amount of angular
momentum. The faster it spins, the greater the angular
momentum.

 This idea of angular momentum is also applied to particles, but

it appeared to be an intrinsic, unchangeable property. For
example, an electron has and will always have 1/2 of spin.
Elementary particle quantum numbers:
 Variety of particles, variety of interactions: confusing.

 Simplified by assigning quantum numbers to each entity.

 In nuclear processes, some quantum numbers are

conserved. (Just like Charge, spin etc.)

 Elementary particle quantum numbers are;

 Baryon number:
 Lepton Number:
 Parity:
 Strangeness:
 Charm:
 Isospin:
 Baryon number B
All baryons have baryon number +1
All antibaryons have baryon number -1.
All other particles have B= 0

The baryon number is conserved in all interactions,

i.e. sum of the baryon number of all incoming particles must be same as the
sum of the baryon numbers of all particles resulting from the reaction.

For example, the process p  e  g does not violate the conservation



laws of charge, energy, linear momentum, or angular momentum.

 However, it does not occur because it violates the conservation

of baryon number, i.e., B = 1 on the left and 0 on the right.

 It is fortunate that this process "never" happens, otherwise all

protons in the universe would gradually change into positrons !

 However, protons actually do decay, although with a half-life of at least 1032

years, which is longer than the age of the universe. All attempts to detect
the decay of protons have thus far been unsuccessful.
 Lepton Number
 Lepton number:
Le =1 for electron and electron neutrino, Le = -1 for their
antiparticles. Le =0 for all other particles.
 Lμ =1 for muon and muon neutrino, Lμ = -1 for their
antiparticles. Lμ =0 for all other particles.
 LԎ =1 for tau lepton and tau neutrino, LԎ = -1 for their
antiparticles. LԎ =0 for all other particles.

 The lepton number is conserved in all interactions,

 i.e. the sum of the lepton number of all incoming particles
is the same as the sum of the lepton numbers of all
particles resulting from the reaction.
Some examples of quantum number conservations
Other quantum numbers
 Strangeness S: Strangeness of anti-particles is referred to
as +1, and particles as -1
 Strangeness is conserved in strong and electromagnetic
interactions but not during weak interactions.
 DS=1 in weak interactions. DS>1 are forbidden.

 Charm C:
 Charm is conserved in strong and electromagnetic interactions, but
not in weak interactions. DC=1 in weak interactions.
 Parity P:
 Quarks have an intrinsic parity +1 and for an antiquark parity = -1.
Nucleons have intrinsic parity +1.
 Yukawa’s Meson
"How can two objects affect one
another without touching?”
 Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa developed a theory called
meson theory that would describe the force between nucleons
analogous to the electromagnetic force.

 The mediator of the nuclear strong force analogous to the photon in

the electromagnetic force which he called a meson .

 (Greek word meso meaning “middle” its mass being between

electron and proton masses).
Pi mesons are now called as pions.
0 is neutral , +and - are charged

Mass of pions are around 270 me

 Exchange forces
 You can think about forces as being analogous to the following situation:
Two people are standing in boats. One person moves his arm and is pushed
backwards; a moment later the other person grabs at an invisible object
and is driven backwards. Even though you cannot see a basketball, you
can assume that one person threw a basketball to the other person
because you see its effect on the people.

 It turns out that all interactions which affect matter particles are due to an
exchange of force carrier particles, these particles are like basketballs
tossed between matter particles (which are like the basketball players).
 What we normally think of as "forces" are actually the effects of force carrier
particles on matter particles.
Exchange forces

96
 Feynman diagrams
 Feynman diagrams are graphical ways to represent exchange forces.
 Each point at which lines come together is called a vertex, and at each
vertex one may examine the conservation laws which govern particle
interactions.
 Each vertex must conserve charge, baryon number and lepton number.
Feynman diagrams
Examples of Feynman diagrams
Unification of Fundamental Forces
Electricity 1864
Magnetism Electromagnetism
1971
Light
Electroweak Interaction

Beta-decay 1976
Weak Interaction
Neutrinos Standard
1965
Model
Protons 1973
Neutrons Strong Interaction

Pions, etc. ?
Earth Gravity
1687 1916
Universal Gravity
Celestial Mech. General
Relativity
Spacetime Geom.
 Beyond the Standard
Model:Unification of forces
ELECTRO-
MAGNETIC

UNIFIED
GRAVITY FORCE? STRONG

WEAK

Looking for a simple elegant unified theory

 "Young man, if I could remember
the names of these particles,
I would have been a botanist!“
E.Fermi to his student
L. Lederman (both Nobel laureates)

The Particle Physicist’s Bible: Particle Data Book

https://pdg.lbl.gov
Most particles are not stable and can decay to lighter particles..