nLab fundamental particle

Examples

fields and particles in particle physics

and in the standard model of particle physics:

force field gauge bosons

• photon - electromagnetic field (abelian Yang-Mills field)

• W, Z, B-boson - electroweak field (Yang-Mills field)

• gluon - strong nuclear force (Yang-Mills field)

• graviton - field of gravity

• infraparticle

scalar bosons

• Higgs boson, inflaton (scalar field)

matter field fermions (spinors, Dirac fields)

flavors of fundamental fermions in the standard model of particle physics:
generation of fermions	1st generation	2nd generation	3d generation
quarks ($q$)
up-type	up quark ($u$)	charm quark ($c$)	top quark ($t$)
down-type	down quark ($d$)	strange quark ($s$)	bottom quark ($b$)
leptons
charged	electron	muon	tauon
neutral	electron neutrino	muon neutrino	tau neutrino
bound states:
mesons	light mesons: pion ($u d$) ρ-meson ($u d$) ω-meson ($u d$) f1-meson a1-meson	strange-mesons: ϕ-meson ($s \bar s$), kaon, K*-meson ($u s$, $d s$) eta-meson ($u u + d d + s s$) charmed heavy mesons: D-meson ($u c$, $d c$, $s c$) J/ψ-meson ($c \bar c$)	bottom heavy mesons: B-meson ($q b$) ϒ-meson ($b \bar b$)
baryons	nucleons: proton $(u u d)$ neutron $(u d d)$

(also: antiparticles)

effective particles

• Goldstone bosons

hadrons (bound states of the above quarks)

• meson

  • scalar meson

    • σ-meson

    • pion

    • kaon

    • D-meson

    • B-meson

  • vector meson

    • ω-meson

    • ρ-meson

    • f1-meson

    • a1-meson

    • b1-meson

    • h1-meson

    • K*-meson

  • tensor meson

  • quarkonium

    • charmonium

    • ϒ-meson

• exotic meson

  • XYZ meson

  • tetraquark

• baryon

  • nucleon

    • proton

    • neutron

    • chemical element

      • carbon

      • nitrogen

  • Lambda baryon

  • pentaquark

solitons

• Skyrmion

• caloron

• instanton

in grand unified theory

• leptoquark

• Z'-boson

minimally extended supersymmetric standard model

superpartners

bosinos:

• gravitino - field of supergravity (Rarita-Schwinger field)

• gaugino - super Yang-Mills field

• gluino

sfermions:

• squark

dark matter candidates

• WIMP

• axion

Exotica

• preon

• graviphoton

• dilaton

• monopole

• dual graviton

• giant graviton

auxiliary fields

• ghost field

• antifield

• antighost field, Nakanishi-Lautrup field

Related concepts

• particle, string, brane

• quasiparticle, anyon

• preon

• unitary representation of the Poincaré group

• particle physics, standard model of particle physics

Scales

length scales in the observable universe (from cosmic scales, over fundamental particle-masses around the electroweak symmetry breaking to GUT scale and Planck scale):

graphics grabbed from Zupan 19