meson

In particle physics, a meson () is a type of hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and antiquarks, usually one of each, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of quark subparticles, they have a meaningful physical size, a diameter of roughly one femtometre (10 m), which is about 0.6 times the size of a proton or neutron. All mesons are unstable, with the longest-lived lasting for only a few tenths of a nanosecond. Heavier mesons decay to lighter mesons and ultimately to stable electrons, neutrinos and photons.

AI overview

A meson is a tiny subatomic particle made of a quark and an antiquark held together by a strong force, with a size roughly 0.6 times that of a proton. Mesons are important to understanding particle physics because they're unstable and decay into other particles, helping scientists trace the fundamental building blocks of matter and energy.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Key facts

Particle.name: Mesons
Particle.image: 200px
Particle.caption: Mesons of spin 0 form a nonet
Particle.num_types: ~140 (list)
Particle.composition: composite: quarks and antiquarks
Particle.statistics: bosonic
Particle.group: hadron
Particle.interaction: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational
Particle.theorized: Hideki Yukawa (1935)
Particle.discovered: 1947
Particle.mass: from 134.9 MeV/c2 ()to 9.460 GeV/c2 ()
Particle.electric_charge: −1 e, 0 e, +1 e
Particle.spin: 0 ħ, 1 ħ

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

2,266 papers

Meson radiobiology and therapy.Experientia. Supplementum · 1975Kligerman MMDOI: 10.1007/978-3-0348-5520-4_89
The meson.American scientist · 1950MARGENAU H
Light meson physics at BESIII.National science review · 2021Fang SSDOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwab052
Photoproduction of the f_{2}(1270) Meson Using the CLAS Detector.Physical review letters · 2021Carver M, Celentano A, Hicks K et al.DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.082002
f_{0}(1370) Controversy from Dispersive Meson-Meson Scattering Data Analyses.Physical review letters · 2023Peláez JR, Rodas A, Ruiz de Elvira JDOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.051902
Where Is the Lightest Charmed Scalar Meson?Physical review letters · 2021Du ML, Guo FK, Hanhart C et al.DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.192001
Con-fusion.Lancet (London, England) · 1989
EFFECTS OF HEAVY HIGH ENERGY CHARGED PARTICLES. I. LITERATURE REVIEW OF EFFECTS OF PROTONS, DEUTERONS, AND ALPHA-PARTICLES IN MAMMALS WITH A THEORETICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE NEGATIVE PI-MESON.ReviewArchives of pathology · 1963LIPPINCOTT SW, MOORE WH Jr, JESSEPH JE et al.

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Wikidata facts

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Stack Exchange tag: physics.stackexchange.com/tags/mesons
Commons category: Mesons

Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~28 min read

Article

26 sections

Contents

History
Overview
Spin, orbital angular momentum, and total angular momentum
P-parity
C-parity
G-parity
Isospin and charge
Original isospin model
Replacement by the quark model
Flavour quantum numbers
Classification
Types of meson
Nomenclature
Flavourless mesons
Flavoured mesons
Exotic mesons
List
Pseudoscalar mesons
Vector mesons
Notes on neutral kaons
See also
Footnotes
References
General Sources
External links
Further reading

Outside the nucleus, mesons appear in nature only as short-lived products of very high-energy collisions between particles made of quarks, such as cosmic rays (high-energy protons and neutrons) and baryonic matter. Mesons are routinely produced artificially in cyclotrons or other particle accelerators in the collisions of protons, antiprotons, or other particles.