nLab quark

Contents

Context

Fields and quanta

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

Contents

Idea

Quarks (Gell-Mann 64, Zweig 64) are one of the fundamental particles/matter fields in the standard model of particle physics. Quarks couple to the Yang-Mills theory given by QCD.

Quarks come in three generations of fermions:

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)

At room-temperature quarks always form bound states to hadrons. This phenomenon of confinement is quantitatively well-reproduced by lattice QCD computations (see Fodor-Hoelbling 12) and qualitatively well reproduced by conceptual arguments such as the AdS/QCD correspondence, but a full analytic proof of confinement from a rigorous AQFT-like foundation of QCD remains open, see the mass gap problem.

However, at high temperature QCD goes through a deconfinement phase transition and enters another phase of matter known as the quark-gluon plasma. As the name suggests, here quarks and gluons are free.

References

General

Textbooks:

Quark masses in terms of chiral perturbation theory:

History

The quark model was proposed independently in 1964 by

  • Murray Gell-Mann, A Schematic Model of Baryons and Mesons, Phys.Lett. 8 (1964) 214-215 (spire:11880, doi:10.1016/S0031-9163(64)92001-3)

  • George Zweig, An SU(3) model for strong interaction symmetry and its breaking, version 1 is CERN preprint 8182/TH.401, Jan. 17, 1964, version 2 in Developments in the Quark Theory of Hadrons Volume 1. Edited by D. Lichtenberg and S. Rosen. Nonantum, Mass., Hadronic Press, 1980. pp. 22-101 (spire:4674)

Review of this history:

Ab-initio lattice computation

Due to confinement, before the quark-gluon plasma was seen in experiment it was a logical possibility that the quark-model of QCD is not actually correct. But more recend ab-initio computation in lattice QCD show that starting with the quark model, at least the light hadron bound states observes in experiment are reproduced by these ab-initio computations. This is discussed in the following references, see the good review Fodor-Hoelbling 12

  • S. Durr, Z. Fodor, J. Frison, C. Hoelbling, R. Hoffmann, S.D. Katz, S. Krieg, T. Kurth, L. Lellouch, T. Lippert, K.K. Szabo, G. Vulvert,

    Ab-initio Determination of Light Hadron Masses,

    Science 322:1224-1227,2008 (arXiv:0906.3599)

  • Zoltan Fodor, Christian Hoelbling, Light Hadron Masses from Lattice QCD, Rev. Mod. Phys. 84, 449, (arXiv:1203.4789)

  • S. Aoki et. al. Review of lattice results concerning low-energy particle physics (arXiv:1607.00299)

See also

Last revised on September 7, 2023 at 12:38:37. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.