nLab fundamental particle

Contents

Context

Physics

physics, mathematical physics, philosophy of physics

Surveys, textbooks and lecture notes


theory (physics), model (physics)

experiment, measurement, computable physics

Contents

1. Idea

In physics, by a fundamental or elementary particle one means a particle which is not a bound state of other objects, hence which is “indivisible”.

In computational practice this means that elementary particles are those that are really point-like, while non-elementary particles have a finite extension (if only in some averaged sense).

In the standard model of particle physics elementary particles include among the fermions the electrons and quarks, and among the bosons the photon and the Higgs boson. In contrast, all hadrons, hence all baryons, hence in particular the proton and neutron, are bound states of quarks, and then all nuclei are bound states of protons and neutrons, and all atoms are bound states of nuclei and electrons.

But of course, “atoms” get their name from a time when they were thought to be indivisible elementary particles, which highlights that the notion of what counts as “elementary” can change over time.

Various “beyond standard” models postulate that at least some of the currently understood elementary particles are in fact not so. For instance in “composite Higgs models” such as in technicolor models, the Higgs boson (which appears to be an elementary particle according to available measurements) is postulated to be a bound state and hence non-elementary.

In a slightly different manner, in usual string theory phenomenology none of the currently observed elementary particles would in fact be elementary, but all of them would arise as massless “states of strings”.

2. Examples

fields and particles in particle physics

and in the standard model of particle physics:

force field gauge bosons

scalar bosons

matter field fermions (spinors, Dirac fields)

flavors of fundamental fermions in the
standard model of particle physics:
generation of fermions1st generation2nd generation3d generation
quarks (qq)
up-typeup quark (uu)charm quark (cc)top quark (tt)
down-typedown quark (dd)strange quark (ss)bottom quark (bb)
leptons
chargedelectronmuontauon
neutralelectron neutrinomuon neutrinotau neutrino
bound states:
mesonslight mesons:
pion (udu d)
ρ-meson (udu d)
ω-meson (udu d)
f1-meson
a1-meson
strange-mesons:
ϕ-meson (ss¯s \bar s),
kaon, K*-meson (usu s, dsd s)
eta-meson (uu+dd+ssu u + d d + s s)

charmed heavy mesons:
D-meson (uc u c, dcd c, scs c)
J/ψ-meson (cc¯c \bar c)
bottom heavy mesons:
B-meson (qbq b)
ϒ-meson (bb¯b \bar b)
baryonsnucleons:
proton (uud)(u u d)
neutron (udd)(u d d)

(also: antiparticles)

effective particles

hadrons (bound states of the above quarks)

solitons

in grand unified theory

minimally extended supersymmetric standard model

superpartners

bosinos:

sfermions:

dark matter candidates

Exotica

auxiliary fields

4. 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

5. References

See also

Last revised on March 27, 2025 at 18:59:09. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.