Introduction to Elementary Particles

Antony Prakash Monteiro1 , Praveen P D’Souza1 and

K B Vijayakumar2
1. P.G Department of Physics,
St Philomena College, Darbe, Puttur-574202
2. Department of Physics,
Mangalore University Mangalagangothri 574 199
E-mail:kbvijayakumar@[Link]

Abstract: Dramatic progress has been made in particle physics

during the last two decades. A series of important experimental dis-
coveries has firmly established the existence of a sub nuclear world
of quarks and leptons. This article gives a basic introduction to el-
ementary particle physics and its latest advancements.

Key words:Quarks, Leptons, Feynman Diagram, QED, QCD, Weak

Interaction, Higgs Boson, Deep Inelastic Scattering, GUT, String
Theory

1 Introduction
1.1 Fundamental Constituents
Particle physics is concerned with the fundamental constituents of
matter and the fundamental forces through which the fundamental

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

constituents interact among themselves. The very word fundamen-

tal needs explanation. When we say a particle is fundamental, in
the language of quantum mechanics, it has no spectra. It is impor-
tant to note that electron is a fundamental particle to the energy
scale we have reached so far. It is because, experimentally the tran-
sition e−∗ → e− + γ has never been seen. So we can safely say, to
the energy scale reached so far electron has remained a fundamental
particle. Important aspect to be noted here is, if you want to probe
a particle, the wave length of the probe has to be of the order of the
size of the particle. To probe small distances, we need high energy
particle. Till 1900, only two forces were known gravitational and
electromagnetic. Atom was thought to be a fundamental particle
since there were no probes which could probe inside the atom. But,
the Rutherford’s scattering experiment (the large back angle scat-
tering of α particles by gold foil) confirmed that atom has a sub
structure. Hence, accelerators were developed to probe the ultimate
constituents of matter. In the early decades of the 20th century, the
particle beam energies reached only a few MeV (106 eV), and the
resolution was so poor that protons and neutrons were regarded as
fundamental particles. In all these experiments, projectiles were
accelerated and were to hit the target which was stationary. Now a
days, all the accelerators built are colliders (collide two high energy
particles head-on, as opposed to firing one particle on a stationary
target).
Suppose an incident particle of mass MA , total momentum PA and
total energy EA collide with a particle of mass MB , momentum
PB and energy EB , for a fixed target machine (PB = 0), the to-
tal available energy rises as the square root of the incident en-
ergy EF IXED ≈ (2MB EA )1/2 , where as for the collider the energy
2
available is ECM = (EA + EB )2 . Obviously, therefore, the high-
est possible energies for creating new particles are to be found at
colliding-beam accelerators.

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1.2 Birth of the Strong Force

Rutherford’s scattering experiment established that, an atom has
a sub structure that is the nucleus. Nucleus consists of protons
and neutrons. But Rutherford’s model did not address the ques-
tion: what holds the nucleus together? After all, the positively
charged proton should repel one another. Hence, it must be some
other force and named it as strong force or nuclear force. From
the nucleon-nucleon scattering experiments and from the study of
deuteron it was established that nuclear forces are of short range,
spin dependent, charge independent and have saturation property.
Hence the fundamental forces rose to three in number.

In 1930, the fourth fundamental force was discovered in nuclear

beta decay and was termed as weak interaction. It was found that
a free neutron decays to a proton and an electron. But, the beta
decay spectrum was continuous. By the conservation of energy and
momentum it was clear that if it is a two-body decay then the beta
spectrum cannot be continuous. Also, the interaction violated the
conservation of energy and angular momentum. To explain the beta
decay spectrum Pauli (Wolfgang Pauli, Noble Prize 1945) proposed
that there should be a third particle which is spin 12 , chargeless
massless. It was called as neutrino (ν) (in beta decay it is in fact
anti neutrino ν̄ ).

The advancement in particle physics was in identifying the con-

served quantities in a physical system which is based on Noether’s
theorem. According to Noethers theorem, “for every continuous
symmetry of the laws of physics, there must exist a conservation
law”. For every conservation law, there must exist a continuous
symmetry. The invariance under time translation leads to con-
servation of energy and invariance under space translation leads
to conservation of linear momentum and invariance under rotation

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leads to conservation of angular momentum. Quantum field theory

exploits these conservation laws.

1.3 Development of Quantum Field Theory

In the mean time, the quantum field theory (QFT) was devel-
oped (Sin-Itiro Tomo Naga, Julian Schwinger and Richard P. Feyn-
man, Noble Prize 1965). According to QFT, i) all forces are of
exchange type, i.e., particle interact through the exchange of a
mediating particle which are virtual particles (for a real particle
E 2 − P 2 C 2 = M02 C 4 , for a virtual particle it can take any value, in
other words virtual particle exists for a time allowed by the uncer-
tainty principle). This was a revolutionary concept, since in clas-
sical physics, no mediating particles are present. ii) The range of
the interaction is inversely proportional to the mass of the particle
being exchanged. In electrodynamics, the electromagnetic force has
infinite range and hence is mediated by a massless particle which
is the photon.
Yukawa (Hideki Yukawa, Noble Prize 1949) applied the QFT to the
strong interaction. Since the range of the strong interaction was
known, Yukawa predicted the mass of the mediating particle to be
around 140 MeV. In the mean time, Powell (Cecil Frank Powell,
Noble Prize 1950) and his workers discovered that there are actu-
ally three middle weight particles in cosmic rays, which were named
as π (pion). It had the mass as predicted by Yukawa. Hence, QFT
had its biggest success. Now we know that all the forces of nature
(strong, electromagnetic and weak) are governed by the application
of QFT.

In 1936, the positron (e+ ) the anti-particle of e− was discovered

by C.D. Anderson (Carl Anderson, Noble Prize 1936). Anderson
took the photograph of the track left in a cloud chamber by a cosmic
ray particle. The chamber was placed in a magnetic field. From the

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curvature of the track and from its texture, Anderson showed that
the mass of the particle was close to the mass of the electron. In
1960’s most of the elementary particles were discovered in the fol-
lowing manner. When a high energy particle passes through matter
they ionise the atoms along their path. The ions act as ‘seeds’ in the
formation of a droplet (cloud chamber) or bubble (bubble chamber)
or sparks (spark chamber). For example, in bubble chamber neu-
tral particles will be ‘invisible’, their paths have to be reconstructed
by analysing the tracks of the charged particles in the picture and
invoking conservation of energy and momentum at each vertex. In
a magnetic field, a particle of charge q and momentum p will move
in a circle of radius R given by the cyclotron formula R= (pv/qB).
Knowing the curvature and the track in a known B, the particle
momentum can be measured. The sign of the charge is inferred
from the direction of the curve.
The concept of anti particles was introduced by Dirac (Paul Ander-
son Dirac, Nobel Prize 1933) in his theory to explain the negative
energy solution of a relativistic spin 12 particle. According to QFT,
for every particle there must be an anti-particle with the same mass,
life time and spin but with opposite electric charge and opposite
magnetic moment. The negatively charged anti proton was ob-
served at Berkeley Bevatron in 1955 by Segre and his collaborators
(Emilio Gino Segre and Owen Chamberlain, Noble Prize, 1959).
The neutral anti neutron was discovered a year later. Several more
particles were discovered. Some of them were produced in strong
interaction but decayed via weak interaction (decaying only after a
considerable time) and such particles were termed as strange par-
ticles (were produced in pairs). In 1947, G.D. Rochester and C.C.
Butler obtained a cloud chamber picture of cosmic rays that indi-
cated existence of a new particle. ‘V’ track was seen indicating that
a new neutral particle had decayed into two charged particles. In
cloud chamber, bubble chamber and emulsion chamber, such par-

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Table 1: The Properties of the Four Forces

Life
Mediating Time
Force Srength Range Theory
Particle (τ )in
Sec.

Yukawa π±, π0
Strong 1 10−13 cm 10−23
theory (spin 0)

Quantum
Electro
Electro- Photon(spin
mag- 10−2 ∞ Infinite
dynam- 1 massless)
netic
ics

Fermi
Weak 10−7 10−16 cm Not known Unknown
theory

Gravi- General Graviton

10−39 ∞ Unknown
tation theory (spin 2)

ticles were discovered at a faster rate. It was clear by 1960, that

there are four fundamental forces. The decay of unstable particles
through strong, electromagnetic and weak was established (the un-
certainty principle relates the life time and the uncertainty in the
energy of a state). An unstable particle does not have a unique
mass, but a distribution width Γ0 = h/τ . So, when τ is very short,
its value can be inferred from the measured width Γ0 . The quantum
electrodynamics (QED) was recognised as the theory of electromag-
netic interaction. The properties of the four forces around 1960 are
listed below.

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By 1960, there were many more elementary particles. The question

was whether all these particles can be termed elementary or funda-
mental particles? Table 1 lists the fundamental interactions as we
understand today.

1.4 Production and Detection of Elementary

Particles
Most of the elementary particles were produced in cosmic rays, nu-
clear reactors and particle accelerators. Electrons are produced by
simply heating up a metal piece. Protons are produced by ionizing
the hydrogen atom. The electrons and protons are stable parti-
cles. More exotic particles were discovered in cosmic rays which
are high energy particles which constantly bombarded earth from
outer space and their origin still remains a mystery. When high
energy particles hit the atoms in upper atmosphere they produce
showers of secondary particles (mostly muons when they reach the
ground). The nuclear reactors are another source of elementary
particles. When a radioactive nucleus disintegrates, it emits vari-
ety of particles - such as neutrons and neutrinos and alpha particles
(bound state of two protons and two neutrons), beta rays (electrons
or positrons) and gamma rays (photons). In present day accelera-
tors, electrons or protons are accelerated to very high energy and
smash them to a target, using electric fields to accelerate particles,
magnetic fields to steer and focus the beams. Three major types
of accelerators are 1) linear accelerators, 2) cyclotrons and 3) syn-
chrotrons. The increasing energy requires increasing sophistication
of tools to detect particles.
In modern accelerators, it is possible to generate intense secondary
beams of positrons, muons, pions, kaons and antiprotons which can
be fired at another target. The stable particles such as electrons,
positrons and antiprotons can be fed into giant storage rings which

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guided by the powerful magnets circulate at high speed and can be

used at the required moment. It should be noted that the heavier
the particle to be produced the higher must be the energy of the
collision. Hence, the light particles are produced first. In general,
higher the energy of the particle (hence higher is the momenta) the
smaller is the wave length and hence can probe a smaller distance.
Hence, to probe a small distance higher energies are required. The
accelerator at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear research),
is the large hadron collider (LHC) collides proton on protons each
of 7 TeV to produce centre of mass energy of 14 TeV. Two protons
colliding at high energy can produce various hadrons plus very high
mass particles such as z bosons. The Higgs boson was discovered
in LHC. LHC is the largest and highest particle collider with CM
energy of 14 TeV. Its length is 27 km in circumference and it is
175 meters beneath the ground. The other important collider is
the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National
Laboratory (BNL), Upton, New York, USA. In RHIC, two gold
nuclei of 200 GeV collide to produce centre of mass energy of 400
GeV. Its length is 2.4 miles and temperature achieved is about 1012
K (for detecting quark-gluon plasma, believed to be formed dur-
ing the big bang). RHIC collisions occur thousands of times per
second. The high energy accelerators developed in last twenty five
years are listed below.
1) LEP-I e+ e− collider, CERN 91 GeV (1989 1994)
2) LEP-II e+ e− collider, CERN 209 GeV (1995 2000)
3) HERA-I ep (electron-proton collider), DESY 27 + 800 GeV (1992
2000)
4) HERA-II ep collider, DESY 27 + 920 GeV (2002 2007)
5) TeVatron Run I ppbar collider, (proton-anti proton) Fermilab
1.8 TeV(1987 -1996)
6) TeVatron Run II ppbar collider, Fermilab 1.96 TeV (2002 2011)
7) LHC, phase I pp collider, CERN 7 TeV (2010- 2012)

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8) LHC, phase II pp collider, CERN 14 TeV (2014 onwards)

The early particle detectors were Geiger counters, cloud cham-

bers, bubble chambers, spark chambers, photographic emulsions,
Cerenkov counters, scintillators, photo multipliers etc. The present
day modern detectors have whole array of these devices connected
to a computer that tracks the particles and displays the trajecto-
ries on the computer screen. The most of the detectors rely on the
fact that when a high energy charged particles pass through matter
they ionize atoms along their path. The ion then acts as ’seeds’
in the formation of droplets (cloud chamber) or bubbles (bubble
chamber) or sparks (spark chamber). It should be noted that neu-
tral particles do not cause ionization and leaves no track. These
detectors were placed in magnetic field. From the curvature of the
track in a known magnetic field, particle momentum can be mea-
sured and from the direction of the curve the sign of the particle
can be determined.

1.5 Classification of Elementary Particles (1960)

All the known elementary particles were classified as hadrons (heavy)
and leptons (light) depending on their mass. But, now this nomen-
clature has lost its meaning. After the discovery of the τ − par-
ticle (Mass 1777 MeV) and its corresponding neutrino ντ (mντ ≤
18 MeV) (discovered by Martin Perl and Frederick Reines (Noble
Prize 1995)). The earlier classification still holds but with a defini-
tion that hadrons under go all interactions (strong, electromagnetic
and weak) where as leptons undergo only electromagnetic and weak
interaction. The hadrons were classified into baryons (odd integral
spin particles) and mesons (integral spin particles) based on the
statistics. Baryons obey Fermi-Dirac (FD) statistics and mesons
obey Bose-Einstein (BE) statistics. The complete list of leptons is
given in table 3.

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2 Quark Model (1964)

2.1 SU(3) Symmetry
With the growing number of strongly interacting particles, it was
difficult to believe that they are all fundamental building blocks of
nature, and so there were attempts to look for symmetries. Finally,
in 1961 M. Gell-Mann and Y Ne’eman proposed the eight-fold way,
an SU(3) symmetry scheme for the classification of hadrons, the
baryons and mesons. The eightfold way arranged the baryons and
mesons into weird geometrical patterns, according to their charge
and strangeness. It was found that all observed baryons fall into the
representations 1,8 and 10 of the group SU(3) of transformations
whereas all mesons are grouped into the representations 1 and 8 of
SU(3) (SU(3) is a Lie Group which consists of 3x3 unitary matrices
with determinant = +1). This observation served as a basis for the
quark model, which was independently suggested by M. Gell-Mann
and G. Zweig in 1964. According to the quark model, baryons are
made of three quarks up (u), down (d) and strange (s). While
mesons are bound state of quark-anti-quark. Quarks are spin 12
particles and so obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. All the quarks carry
addition quantum number known as baryon number whose value is
1/3. The three quarks u, d and s form the fundamental represen-
tation of the SU(3) group. With this classification all the observed
baryons and mesons of same spin and parity form the higher dimen-
sional representations of the SU(3) group. All observed baryons
(J p = 1/2+ ) are of octet representation and baryons of J p = 3/2+
form the 10 dimensional representation of the SU(3) group. Out
of the 10 (J p = 3/2+ ) baryons predicted by the quark model only
nine were known experimentally at that time. The greatest tri-
umph of the quark model was the 10th baryons predicted by the
quark model (the famous omega particle (Ω− ) with a mass of 1672
MeV and charge -1 with three s quark content) was experimentally

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found ([Link] et al., Phys. [Link]. 12, 204 (1964)) precisely

as predicted by Gell-Mann (Noble prize for Gell-Mann in 1969)
(appendix I). Also, the quark model could successfully account for
the masses, magnetic moments, and lifetime and could predict the
principal decays of hadrons. One of the biggest successes of the
quark model was its prediction of the neutron magnetic moment
(which could not be explained in nuclear physics since the charge
of the neutron is zero). The quark model was accepted by the sci-
entific community partially. The rest mass of an individual quark
is not well-defined, given that individual quarks don’t exist. The
proton and neutron have masses ≈ 1836 times that of the elec-
tron,but this doesn’t mean that up and down quarks have masses
of roughly one-third of the proton. The strong force is so powerful
inside a triplet that the energy which binds them together (think
of it as ”strong-force potential energy”, analogous to gravitational
potential energy) is by far the largest contributor to the mass of the
proton. That is, the quarks potential energy far exceeds the energy
E = mc2 that their masses represent, so the mass of a proton may
consist of 5% − 20% quark mass (it’s hard to tell), and the rest is
the nuclear binding energy.

2.2 Introduction of the Colour

In spite of great success of the quark model, it had one very big
draw back. It violates Paulis exclusion principle. Since quarks are
fermions the wave function of the baryon has to be antisymmet-
ric. But the ∆++ particle (and also the ∆−− and the Ω− ) total
wave function turns out to be symmetric. Hence, there was a dan-
ger of quark model being abandoned. To save the Pauli Exclu-
sion Principle, O.W. Greenberg (O.W. Greenberg, Phys. [Link].
13, 598 (1964)) proposed that each flavour quark comes in three
colours, red, green and blue. Baryon wave functions are products of
a symmetric space-spin-flavour wave function, and an antisymmet-

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ric colour wave function. Hence the total wave function is antisym-
metric. It is to be noted that the term colour here has absolutely no
connection with the ordinary meaning of the word. Redness, blue-
ness and greenness are simply additional quantum numbers used to
denote quarks in addition to the charge and the strangeness. With
the introduction of the colour, quark model was saved. Since it was
clear that none of the baryons or mesons are fundamental particles,
attempts were made to explain the baryon and meson spectra from
the quark models. That is to describe the excited states which one
observes when protons or neutrons are bombarded with particles
having energies higher than several hundred MeV. Under such cir-
cumstances the nucleon can assume different properties that can be
described as an excitation of the nucleon, analogous to the excita-
tion of atoms or nuclei. Many excited states of the nucleon have
been discovered. The nucleon is merely the ground state of a com-
plex spectrum. Since all baryons levels have half-integral spin, any
such transition requires an integer change of angular momentum.
Consequently, the system that is emitted or absorbed by the baryon
during such a transition can consist of any number of bosons, or of
an even number of fermions, or of both. As in atoms and nuclei,
one observes the emission and absorption of photons in transition
between baryon sates. These occur only between states of the same
strangeness, and this tells us that there is a selection rule ∆S = 0
for electromagnetic transactions. In baryon transition, yet another
transition mode appeared: the absorption or emission of particles
belonging to a new species, the mesons. As mesons can be absorbed
or emitted singly, it is clear that mesons are bosons. The charac-
teristic energy differences are of the order of several hundred MeV
(for recent excited states of hadrons see Particle data group (2016).
The baryon spectrum is the third level at which nature offers us
a series of well defined quantum states: the first were the atomic
and molecular spectra, the second the nuclear spectra. The typical

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excitation energies are higher with each step: of the order of eV in

the first, MeV in the second, and GeV in the third. In an anal-
ogous manner, the π 0 s are the lowest-lying members of the meson
spectrum. Each of the meson octet’s have a rich spectra. All these
mesons are interconnected by some combinations of strong, electro-
magnetic, or weak decays, and can be viewed as the excitation of a
single system, the meson. The Table 4 lists the mediating particles
of the strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions. Table 5 lists
the conservation laws for strong, electromagnetic and weak inter-
actions.
But, it should be noted that all naturally occurring particles (baryons
and mesons) are colourless. The colourless means that the total
amount of each colour is zero or all three colours are present in
equal amounts. The only colourless combinations you can make
are q q̄ (the mesons), qqq (the baryons) and q̄ q̄ q̄ (the antibaryons).

2.3 Evidence of Quarks, Deep Inelastic Scatter-

ing (DIS) Experiments
The quark model suffered from one profound embarrassment. In
spite of the most diligent search over the years, no one has ever
seen an individual quark. Now, if a proton is really made out of
three quarks, the quarks should come out when hit by a projectile
of sufficient energy. Also, one of the quarks should be absolutely
stable. Since it can not decay into any lighter particle of fractional
charge.

Though no free quarks were seen, one can probe inside the pro-
ton in much the same way as Rutherford probed inside of an atom.
Sixty years later, history repeated itself when a SLAC (Stanford
Linear Accelerator Centre) team of scientists performed (Breiden
bach et al., Phys. [Link].23, 935, (1969)) inelastic electron-

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proton scattering with incident electron energies between 7 GeV

to 17 GeV. In the reaction e + p −→ e’+ X, they only counted
the number of outgoing electrons at various angles, leaving the de-
bris X unobserved. Such cross-sections are termed ‘inclusive’ cross
sections. The results of these experiments are called ‘deep inelas-
tic scattering (DIS)’ experiments. When the momentum transfer
is much larger than the average internal momentum of the nucleon
in the ground state, the process is referred to as DIS. In a DIS
process, large amount of energy and momentum is transferred to
the target. The results of the DIS experiments were striking simi-
lar to the Rutherfords scatter results of the DIS experiments were
striking similar to the Rutherford’s scattering experiment. Most of
the incident particles pass right through, whereas a small number
bounces back sharply. This means that the charge of the proton
is concentrated in small lumps, just as Rutherfords results indi-
cated that the positive charge in an atom is concentrated at the
nucleus. However, in the case of the proton the evidence suggests
three lumps, instead of one. This is a strong support for the quark
model. The Nobel prize was awarded to Jerome.I. Friedman, Henry
W. Kendall and Richard E. Taylor for their pioneering work on DIS
experiments.

3 Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD)

3.1 The Theory of Strong Interactions
The experimental confirmation that quarks come in three colours
came from the ratio of the cross sections of the process of e+ + e−
hadrons to −→ µ+ +µ− . Also, in the e+ e− collider as beam energy
was cranked up one encountered a succession of such thresholds.
First the muon and the light quarks, later (at about 1500 MeV)
the charm quark, was found. C.C Ting in the summer of 1974 at

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SLAC found an electrically neutral, extremely heavy meson more

than three times the mass of the proton. It had an extraordinary
long life time (10−20 seconds). The new particle was named J/Ψ
(Samuel C.C. Ting and Burton Richter Noble Prize, 1976) which
has a mass of 3097 MeV with a charge 0 and the quark content (cc̄)
(Charmonium is the bound state of charm quark and anti-charm
quark) and subsequently another new meson known as upsilon (γ)
(Bottomonium is the bound state of bottom quark and anti-bottom
quark) was discovered (Herb et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.39, 252 (1977))
and it was quickly recognized as the carrier of a fifth quark, b (for
bottom). The γ(bb̄ ) has a mass of 9.460 GeV. Many more charmed
and bottom baryons and mesons were discovered which led to the
study of heavy quark spectroscopy. One more quark named top
quark, the sixth member was observed in 1995, almost 20 years
after the discovery in 1977 of the previously heaviest quark, the
bottom quark. The top quark (t) has a mass of 175 GeV. It was
discovered at the Fermi lab in proton- anti proton collider with 1.8
GeV center of mass energy. The system is so short-lived that no
discrete bound states have been found so far. Table 2 gives the
complete list of quarks.
The nuclear force is also taken into account by QCD. At distances
large compared to the size of hadrons there is no strong force be-
tween hadrons, since they are colour neutral. The nucleon-nucleon
interaction is described by the exchange of and mesons when the
two nucleons do not over lap. But, the region where the two nucle-
ons overlap (around 0.5 Fermi) is described by the six quark system
and the quark models have been reasonably successful in explaining
the short range repulsion.
With these developments QCD was developed. The QCD is the
formal theory of the strong colour interactions between the quarks.
The quarks which come in 3 colours form the fundamental repre-
sentation of the SU(3) colour group. The SU(3) group is an infinite

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set of 3x3 unitary matrices with determinant +1. The SU(3) group
has 8 generators. The anti-quarks carry anticolours. The quarks
interact via exchange of gluons. The gluons are the mediators of the
quark interaction. The colour charge of the strong interactions is
analogous to the electric charge in electromagnetic interactions. A
gluon is a very complicated thing. It has no rest mass, and so moves
at the speed of light, yet the strong force is still very short-ranged.
The reason is, the gluon itself carries strong charge, and thus it
can interact with itself! This would be equivalent to the photon
carrying electric charge instead of being neutral (except that the
strong force is always attractive, never repulsive). Rather than just
streaming away from a light source, electrically charged photons
would tend to electro statically pull themselves back together. So
the gluon has a very limited range, despite being massless. Both
forces are mediated by a massless vector particle (a gluon or a
photon). But, in QCD there are six types of charges (colour and
anticolour) and a charged (i.e. coloured) mediating gluon. Also
the gluons interact among themselves to form glue balls. Gluons
have a combination of a color and an anti color of a different kind
of a superposition of states which are equivalent to the Gell-Mann
matrices. Unlike the single photon of QED or the three mediating
particle of the weak interaction (W + , W − and Z 0 ) bosons, there
are evidently eight kinds of gluons in QCD listed as follows:
(RR̄ − GḠ) (RR̄ − GḠ − 2B B̄)
RB̄, RḠ, GR̄, GB̄, B R̄, B Ḡ, √ , √
2 6
In other words, gluons belong to a SU(3) octet. The remaining
combination, the SU(3) color singlet,
(RR̄ + GḠ + B B̄)
√
3
does not take part in the interaction and is a color single and if it
exists as a mediator, it should also occur as a free particle and hence

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could be exchanged between color singlets (say between mesons or

a proton and a neutron) giving rise to a long range force with a
strong coupling, but the strong force is of short range. Since glu-
ons are massless, like photons they should mediate a force which is
of long range. However, confinement and absence of single gluon,
makes strong force short range. In language of group theory, the
symmetry of QCD is not U(3), since it requires 9 gluons. But, the
experiments resolve the question in favour of SU(3) symmetry.
The equation for QCD is known as Yang-Mills equation which is a
coupled partial differential equation. To this day, there is no ana-
lytical solution to the Yang-Mills equation. Hence, QCD is the least
understood of the three forces. The current topic of interest in low
energy QCD is the chiral perturbation theory. Chiral symmetry is
the symmetry of the massless fermions. Chiral symmetry is em-
ployed to predict the masses of hadrons in the low energy sector.
Another field of current interest is heavy-quark spectroscopy.

3.2 Experimental Evidence of Gluons

In the process e+ +e− −→ γ −→ q q̄ −→ hadrons, for a brief moment
the quarks fly apart as free particles, but when they reach a separa-
tion distance of around 10−15 meters (the diameter of the hadron),
their strong interaction is so great that new quark-antiquark pairs
are produced mainly by the gluons. These quarks and antiquarks
join together to make the baryons that are actually recorded at the
detector. In all the debris there is one unmistakable footprint left
behind by the original quark-antiquark pair: the hadrons emerge
in two back-to-back ‘jets’, one along the direction of the primordial
quark, the other marking the direction of the antiquark. But, in
addition to two jet events three jet events are also observed, indi-
cating that a gluon carry a substantial fraction of the total energy.
The observation of the three-jet event is generally regarded as the
most direct evidence for the existence of the gluons.

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3.3 Two Important Features of the QCD

The two important features of the QCD are the asymptotic free-
dom and the infrared slavery. From DIS experiments it was clear
that interaction strength between quarks given by the strong cou-
pling constant (αs ) decreases at very large momentum transfers
or at short distances. This is termed in literature as asymptotic
freedom but at large distances or at low momentum transfers the
coupling constant αs grows in strength and is so large that no free
quarks have ever been seen outside the hadron, this is termed as
infrared slavery. But, this is the region which is of importance in nu-
clear physics where quarks condensate to form baryons and mesons.
Hence, in quark models, the confinement is imposed by a linear or
quadratic potential. Attempts have been made to solve Yang-Mills
equation using numerical techniques (known as lattice gauge theo-
ries). It is important to note that αs is in fact not a constant at
all, but depends on the separation distance between the interacting
particles (hence is termed as running coupling constant). The per-
turbative analysis of QCD is well grounded based on the fact that
the theory is asymptotically free. The coupling constant which is
a measure of the effectiveness of the strong force that holds quarks
and gluons together into composite particles introduces a depen-
dence on the absolute scale, implying more radiations at low scales
than at high ones and it is usually referred to as running coupling
constant. The running is logarithmic with energy is given by,

αs (µ2 )
αs (Q2 ) = 2
1 + αs (µ2 )β0 ln Qµ2 + 0(αs2 )

Numerically, the value of the strong coupling constant is speci-

fied by two parameters, the renormalization scale (µ) and the corre-
sponding value of the coupling at that point. These two parameters
can be replaced by a single parameter Λ so that the running cou-

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Antony Prakash Monteiro et al.

pling can be expressed as

1
αs (Q2 ) = 2
β0 ln Q
Λ2

The coupling would clearly diverge at the scale Λ, called the

Landau pole, which specifies the energy scale at which the per-
turbative coupling constant would become infinite. Its value is
experimentally found to be Λ ≈ 200 MeV. This implies that the
perturbative calculations are allowed only at energy scales of or
higher than one GeV.
Qualitatively we do understand the reason for asymptotic freedom.
According to QFT, for example in QED, an electron is just not an
electron: it can suddenly emit a photon or it can emit a photon
that subsequently annihilates into an electron-positron pair, and so
on. Since the original electron is surrounded by e− e+ pairs and, be-
cause opposite charges attract, the positrons will be preferentially
closer to the electron. Therefore, the electron is surrounded by a
cloud of charges which is polarized in such a way that the positive
charges are closer to the electron. The negative charge of the elec-
tron is thus screened. Hence, if we want to determine the charge
of the electron by measuring the Coulomb force experienced by a
test charge, the result depends on where we place the test charge:
when moving the test charge closer to the electron, we penetrate
the cloud of positrons that screens the electron’s charge. Therefore,
the closer one approaches the electron, the larger is the charge one
measures. Hence the coupling constant (α) in QED increases at
short distances or at large momentum transfers, but decreases at
low momentum transfers. If the same analogy is carried to QCD,
it is the colour screening of the quark charge. But, there is a basic
difference here. The gluons, themselves are carriers of colour, also
spread out the effective colour charge of the quark. A red charge
is preferentially surrounded by other red charges. By moving the
test probe closer to the original red quark, the probe penetrates a

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Table 2: Comparison of QED and QCD

S.N. QED QCD

It is an abelian Gauge
1 Non-abelian Gauge theory.
theory.

Mediated by photon
Mediated by 8 gluons which
which is massless spin 1
2 is a massless spin 1 particle
particle which carries no
which carries colour charge.
electric charge

The QED coupling con-

stant due to radiative The QCD coupling constant
corrections (α) (emis- due to radiative corrections
sion and absorption of (αs ) (emission and absorp-
3
virtual photons)increases tion of virtual gluons) de-
at short distance but creases at short distance but
decreases at large dis- increases at large distances.
tances.

sphere of predominantly red charge and the amount of red charge

measured decreases. This in literature is termed as ”anti screening”
of the red colour and is referred to as asymptotic freedom. Below we
compare QED and QCD. QED is the synthesis of quantum theory,
electrodynamics and relativity. The fundamental constants repre-
senting these theories are , e and c respectively. In QED they come
together as the fine structure constant α = (e2 /h̄c) = 1/137.

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4 Gauge Theories
4.1 Theory of Strong, Electromagnetic and Weak.
It is now clear that gauge theories are the underlying theories of the
strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions. The basic postulate
of gauge theories is that it is not possible to measure the absolute
phase of a wave in any experiment. If a lagrangian is invariant
under gauge transformation in which the phase is dependent on
space-time then such theories are known as local gauge theories.
If the Lagrangian is locally gauge invariant under the particular
symmetry transformation, it automatically gives the interaction of
the lagrangian with the external field. This is the crux and most
important aspect of the gauge theories. The biggest boost to the
gauge theories came from the work of Gerardus ‘t Hooft and Mar-
tinus J.G. Veltman (Nobel prize 1999) who showed that all gauge
theories are renormalisable. The term renormalization needs some
explanation.
From the basic interaction of the theory for a particular process,
one can write down the Feynman diagrams (FD) which gives the
scattering amplitude (Mf i ) for a given process. The FD are purely
symbolic; they do not correspond to particle trajectories (as you
might see them in, say, bubble chamber photograph). In FD the
vertical dimension is time, and the horizontal spacings do not cor-
respond to physical dimensions (see figure below). In the figure
below, photon is the Feynman propagator internal line. It repre-
sents creation of the particle (virtual) at one vertex, its propagation
to other vertex and its annihilation. For instance, in the diagram
below, all that the FD says is once there was an electron and a
positron; they exchanged a photon; then there was an electron and
an electron again. Each FD actually stands for a number, which
can be calculated using the so-called Feynman rules. First analyse
a given process say, the electron-electron scattering (figure below).

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Here, one writes down all the diagrams that have the appropriate
external lines (the one with two vertices, all the ones with four ver-
tices, and so on), then evaluate the contribution of each diagram,
using Feynman rules, and add it all up. The sum total of all the
FD for any particular process with the external lines represents
the physical process. The Feynman rules enforce conservation of
energy and momentum at each vertex (the point of interaction).
But, some of the diagrams become infinite and hence needs to be
renormalized (made finite). Once the Mfi is written down, one can
compute cross section or the lifetime for a given process. QED is a
U(1) abelian gauge theory. Here, we demand QED lagrangian to be
invariant under local U(1) gauge transformation. The QCD is an
SU(3) non-abelian gauge theory (non-abelian since the generators
of the group do not commute). Here, the QCD Lagrangian is to
be invariant under local SU(3) gauge transformation. Each flavour
quark comes in three colors, red, blue and green. Although the
various flavours carry different masses, the three colors of a given
flavour weigh the same. Invariance of the Lagrangian under local
SU(3)color transformation leads to Yang-Mills equation which gives
interaction between the quarks and gluons and the self interaction
of the gluons.

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Figure 1: Electron-Electron Scattering

4.2 Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP)

The concept of asymptotic freedom suggests a phase transition of
hadronic, the QCD matter at low temperature (T) and low baryon
density (nB ) in which quarks and gluons are confined, into a new
deconfined phase of matter called quark gluon plasma, at high tem-
perature and high density. Plasma by definition, are quasi neutral
gas of charged and neutral particles that exhibits collective be-
haviour. Quarks are the constituents of nucleons. Usually they are
confined in groups of three to form a nucleon. Under certain condi-
tions there should exist a new phase where the nucleons get close to
each other such that the quarks can fly around freely in a so called
quark gluon plasma. This transition from hadrons to QGP leads to
the change in degrees of freedom in a strongly interacting medium.
Lattice QCD suggests the existence of such a phase transition at
critical temperature Tc of about 150-200 MeV, which corresponds
to a critical density c = 1GeV/fm3 (depends on the quark flavour
Nf ). Lattice gauge theory was developed by K. G. Wilson in 1974.

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Lattice gauge theory is a tool to study non-perturbative QCD from

the first principle by numerical computation. Lattice theory treats
the four dimensional space-time as a lattice like in crystals, in which
quarks occupy lattice points or lattice sites while gluon field occu-
pies lattice links. The lattice approximation approaches continuum
QCD as the spacing between lattice sites is reduced to zero. Using
lattice technique, QCD may be solved using Monte-Carlo method.

4.3 Big-Bang Theory

The big bang model says that the universe began about 13.7 billion
years ago as a tiny point of infinite density and zero size. This spot
and after the explosion, all the particles of matter and anti-matter
rushed outward, away from each other. According to the Big-Bang
theory evolution of the Universe took place in the following manner.
At the time of big bang matter and anti matter were supposed to be
in equal quantities. 1) QGP was supposed to have been formed 10−9
seconds after the Big-bang 2) After 0.01 sec protons and neutrons
were formed 3) After 100 sec. formation of the Helium Nuclei 4)
After 105 years first atom was formed. Big-bang predicts 1) 75%
of the visible matter is hydrogen and 25% of the matter is Helium
2) Presence of background microwave radiation.

4.4 Neutrinos
The neutrinos were postulated by Fermi in 1930 to explain β spec-
tra on purely theoretical grounds. Believed to have zero mass, no
charge and undergo only weak interaction. Important property is
all neutrino’s are left handed (direction of the momentum is op-
posite to the direction of the spin) and anti-neutrino’s are right
handed (direction of the momentum is opposite to the direction of
the spin) (see figure below) and it comes in three flavors νe , νµ and

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ντ . The electrons on the other hand are both left and right handed.
The neutrinos are massless and travel with the speed of light.
In fact, 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. Neutrinos are
found everywhere in the outer space, on earth and in our bodies.
The number of neutrinos from the Sun that are passing through
the fingernail in one second is about 40 billion.
The most intriguing aspect of weak interactions is, it violates
parity (Parity is a valid symmetry of strong and electromagnetic
interaction). This was theoretically predicted by Yang and Lee
in 1956 (Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee, Noble prize 1957).
It was experimentally verified by C.S. Wu (C.S. Wu et al., Phys.
Rev. 104, 254, (1956)). The parity is the space inversion operator
(reflection in X-Z plane + rotation by π degrees about Y-axis, in
Cartesian coordinate system). Parity is a Hermitian and unitary
operator. Parity of a particle is the product of intrinsic parity and
the parity of the orbital angular momentum. Fermion and anti-
fermions have opposite parity where as bosons have same parity.
For mesons parity is (−1)L+1 (L is the orbital angular momentum)
and for photons parity is (−1)N , where N is the number of pho-
tons. Physicists thought that the mirror image of an object or a
process was indistinguishable from the object or process itself. Let
us take a simple example which violates parity. Suppose you were
holding a ball in your right hand and allowed it to fall. Obviously
the ball would fall on the floor. In the mirror it would be a left hand
which drops the ball. The image ball would also drop on the floor.
Here the mirror image corresponds to reality. However, if you had a
special ball discovered by someone, which falls down whenever it is
dropped from right hand, but goes up when dropped from the left
hand then the mirror symmetry would be broken. This is because
the mirror image of this special ball falling down from the right

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

hand would be a ball falling down from the left hand, a situation
contradicting reality. Further, weak interactions are not invariant
under Charge conjugation(C) and also under the combined oper-
ation of both C and Parity (CP). Also it was observed that the
neutrinos which are present in all weak interactions (in fact it is
the signature of the weak interactions) are left handed (the direc-
tion of the spin is opposite to the direction of momentum) and all
antineutrinos are right handed (the direction of the spin is along
the direction of momentum),

Figure 2: Neutrinos (Left-handed)

In the decay of π − −→ µ− + ν̄µ , if pions were to be at rest, the

muon and the anti neutrino should come out back to back and also
since the pion has spin zero, the muon and antineutrino spin must
be oppositely aligned (see figure below). Hence, the anti neutrino
must be right handed in the rest frame of the pion and this was
observed experimentally. Hence, measurement of the muon helicity
enables to determine the helicity of the antineutrino. Hence the

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Figure 3: Anti-neutrinos (Right-handed)

mirror image of the neutrino does exist. The following figure shows
the decay of π − at rest.

Figure 4: The decay of π − at rest

4.5 Experimental Evidence of Parity Violation

In 1956, Lee and Yang discovered that parity is not conserved in
weak interaction. They proposed a test, which was carried out
by C.S Wu. In the experiment, radioactive Cobalt 60 nuclei were

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

aligned such that their spins were along the direction of the mag-
netic field (see figure below). Cobalt undergoes beta decay
60 −
26 Co −→60
27 N i + e + ν̄e

and Wu recorded the direction of the emitted electron and found

that there were along the direction of the nuclear spin. If one
examines the mirror image of the same process, the image nucleus
rotates in the opposite direction and its spin is downwards. But,
the electrons in the mirror still came in the upward direction. This
implies that, in the mirror, electrons are emitted preferentially in
the direction opposite to the nuclear spin. Hence, the mirror image
of the process does not occur in nature. Hence, parity is not an
invariance of the weak interaction. If it were, the electrons should
have come out in equal distribution. For example, in the decay of
neutral pion π 0 −→ γ + γ , which is an electromagnetic process and
hence respects parity. The number of emitted right handed pairs is
equal to the number of left handed photon pairs.

4.6 Double Beta Decay

Double beta decay is a radioactive decay process where a nucleus
releases two beta rays as a single process. Here two neutrons in the
nucleus are converted to two protons and two electrons and two
antineutrinos. In order to the beta decay to be possible the final
nucleus must have larger binding energy than the original nucleus.
Double beta decay is difficult to study since both beta decay and
double beta decay are possible and the probability favouring beta
decay. Hence, the double beta decay is studied only for beta stable
nuclei. Like single beta decay, double beta decay does not change
the mass number. In fact, it is a second order weak process in

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Figure 5: Radioactive Cobalt 60 nuclei were aligned such

that their spins were along the direction of the magnetic
field

which two neutrons inside a nucleus spontaneously transform into

two protons. The double beta decay can be broadly classified into
four categories. They are 1) Two neutrino double beta decay 2)
Neutrinoless double beta decay 3) Single Majorana accompanied
neutrinoless double beta decay and 4) Double Majorana accompa-
nied neutrinoless double beta decay. The decay modes can occur
via 1) Emission of two electrons 2) Emission of two positrons, 3)
Electron-positron conversion and 4) Double electron capture. Ma-
jorana particles are identical with their own anti particles unlike the
Dirac particles which can be distinguished from their anti particles.

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5 Weak Interactions
5.1 Weak Interaction and Unification with the
Electromagnetic Interaction
(Electroweak Unification:SU(2)L x U(1)Y
Theory)
To explain beta decay, Fermi treated the weak interaction process
as a contact interaction, occurring at a single point, and therefore
requiring no mediating particle. It works well at low energies but
fails completely at high energies. Also, it is not a renormalisable
theory. The weak interactions have a very short range of the order
of 10-16cms and hence according to the QFT should be mediated
by very massive particles. Weak interactions take place between all
quark and leptons constituents: each of them has to be assigned
a weak charge g which is related to the electric charge. But, with
the emergence of the electroweak theory of Glasow, Weinberg and
Salam (GWS) (Nobel Prize 1979) predicted that weak interactions
are mediated by three spin 1 bosons two of them charged (known
as W ± with a mass of 82 GeV) and Z boson (with a charge = 0 and
mass 92 GeV). In the late seventies, CERN began construction of
a proton-antiproton collider designed specifically to produce these
extremely heavy particles. In January 1983 W ± and Z bosons were
experimentally detected by Carlo Rubbia’s group (Carlo Rubbia
and Simon Van Der Meer, Nobel Prize 1984), and George Charpak
(Nobel Prize 1992 for his invention and development of particle
detectors). So, weak interaction was placed on a firm footing. It
is important to know the following aspects of the weak interactions.

5.1.1) The weak coupling constant αw = 1/29 and hence is much

larger than the electromagnetic coupling constant α = 1/137, by a
factor of nearly 5. It should be noted that weak interactions are not

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weak because the intrinsic coupling is small, but because the medi-
ating particles are very massive. Since we work typically at energies
so far below the W mass that the denominator in the propagator
is extremely large. But in e− e+ collider at Z 0 resonance weak in-
teractions simply dominate over the electromagnetic interaction.

5.1.2) There are two types of weak interactions. The neutral cur-
rent interaction (mediated by Z 0 particle) and charged current in-
teraction (mediated by W ± , typical example is the beta decay). In
the neutral current interaction, for example,
e− + e+ −→ µ+ + µ−
can occur either by a virtual Z 0 or by a virtual photon. At low
energies the photon mechanism overwhelmingly dominates. But,
in the neighbourhood of the Z 0 mass, where the denominator of
the Z 0 propagator is small the weak interaction cross sections are
very large compared to the electromagnetic cross sections. One of
the biggest successes of the GWS theory was the prediction of the
weak neutral current interaction. It is important to note that every
electromagnetic process is contaminated by weak neutral process
leaving a foot print of parity violation.

5.1.3) The leptons carry no colour, and they do not undergo strong
interactions. Neutrinos have no charge and do not participate in
electromagnetic interaction. But all of them undergo weak interac-
tions.

The basic problem with the Fermi theory is that, it is a Vector-

Vector (V-V) theory (for example P the momentum is a vector and
changes sign under parity whereas, L the angular momentum is an
axial vector and does not change sign under parity) and hence is
invariant under parity. Further, it was based on contact interac-
tion. Based on experimental observations (violation of parity) and

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in consistency with the QFT, it was boldly proposed by Sudhar-

shan and Marshak and independently by Feynman and Gillmann,
that the weak interactions are Vector-Axial vector type (V-A). The
input came from the experiments. To incorporate weak neutral cur-
rent (J N C ) and weak charged current J±, the group was chosen as
SU (2)L x U (1)Y . Here, L stands for left-handed and Y stands for
hypercharge. SU(2) has 3 generators. Out of the 3 generators two
T+ and T− corresponds to charged currents. But, J N C is not purely
left handed. Therefore there was need to enlarge the group. Y, the
hypercharge is the generator of U(1)Y group. Since the electro-
magnetic current JEM is both left handed as well as right handed,
JEM was included in the theory so as to save the SU(2)L symmetry
(JEM = J3 + Y/2 ). Thus, the electromagnetic interaction was
incorporated into the theory. That is, we have two groups each
with an independent coupling strength. So, in addition to e, we
need another coupling to fully specify electroweak interaction. In
the standard mode, the three weak currents couple, with strength
gw, to a weak isotriplet of intermediate vector bosons W, and the
weak hypercharge current

Y Y
Q = I3 + ; j = 2 jYEM − 2 jµ3
2 µ

couples with strength g’/2 to an isosinglet intermediate vector bo-

son B. The standard model for the weak and electromagnetic inter-
action is constructed from a gauge theory mediated by four gauge
bosons, (the photon, W± and Z0 ). The masses for W± and Z0 are
generated by spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB). Our present
understanding of the neutron decay is illustrated in the figure be-
low.

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Antony Prakash Monteiro et al.

Figure 6: Neutron decay

5.2 Basic Idea of SSB and Higgs Mechanism

For the gauge invariance, the gauge boson has to be massless. It is
not a problem in QED and QCD since both photons and gluons are
massless. But, weak interactions are mediated by W± and Z0 which
are massive particles. To generate the masses from a massless the-
ory is achieved through SSB. To start write down the Lagrangian
which is invariant under the gauge group (here SU(2)L x U(1)Y ).
The Lagrangian is invariant, but the ground state (vacuum) is not.
If one of the ground state is singled out as the physical state of
the system (the others being unphysical), the symmetry is lost and
the theory is said to be spontaneously broken i.e. the ground state
is no more invariant under the symmetry transformation but the
Lagrangian is still invariant. If symmetry is broken spontaneously
globally, then there will be one or more massless (spin 0) particles
called Goldstone bosons. This in literature is termed as Goldstone
theorem. But, if the symmetry is broken locally then these massless
bosons acquire mass and this mechanism is known as Higgs mech-

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

anism. In standard model, the Higgs mechanism is responsible for

the masses of all the particles. The gauge principle is responsible
for the masses of all the particle interaction in electroweak the-
ory. The Higgs particle couples to leptons, quarks and to the gauge
bosons. Higgs boson was first proposed by a group of six theoret-
ical physicists, who worked independently, most notably by Peter
Higgs. Higgs boson and its corresponding field is responsible for
the spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism through which the
fermions and the W+ , W− and Z bosons acquire mass. The more
a particle interacts with this field, the heavier it is. Particles like
photons and gluons do not interact with the Higgs field and hence
do not acquire mass. The Higgs boson are the only scalar particles
(spin zero). In the ‘Standard Model’ the origin of mass is addressed
using a mechanism named after the British physicist Peter Higgs.
This predicts a new particle: The Higgs boson.

The Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013 has been awarded to Peter
Higgs and Francois Englert, a Briton and a Belgian, ‘for the the-
oretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our under-
standing of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which
recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fun-
damental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s
Large Hadron Collider’.
Almost 50 years ago in 1964, Englert and Robert Brout, who died
in 2011, and Peter Higgs independently published their work in the
span of a few days. They had described a mechanism making use
of what was known about particle physics at that time to try to
answer a perplexing problem: How do particles acquire mass?
Higgs and Englert hypothesized a quantum field, which is a distri-
bution of some energy, throughout the universe. When the field is
disturbed, waves travel through it. The dimmest possible wave is

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Figure 7: Peter Higgs

called a particle. In this field, since called a Higgs field, the associ-
ated particle is called the Higgs boson.
For physicists, finding the Higgs boson meant that the Higgs field
exists. And because of the Higgs field and its properties, any funda-
mental particles that made through it cause Higgs bosons to clump
around the particles. This clumping causes the particle to acquire
energy and, therefore, mass.
The existence of the Higgs boson was confirmed at the Large Hadron
Collider, near Geneva, Switzerland, over the last year. On July 4,
2012, first hints of the boson’s existence were spotted at the collider.
Ever since, a series of tests on the particle have yielded confirma-
tion, establishing Higgs’s and Englert’s work as a cornerstone of
modern particle physics.
Through an Edinburgh University statement, where Higgs is an

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

emeritus professor, he said he was overwhelmed to receive the award

and congratulated ‘all those who have contributed to the discovery
of this new particle and to thank my family, friends and colleagues
for their support. I hope this recognition of fundamental science
will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research’.

6 Solar Neutrinos
6.1 Solar Neutrinos Problem
The observed νe on the earth is about 1/3 rd of the theoretically
predicted νe ’s produced by the sun.
6.1.1 There is a major discrepancy between measurements of the
numbers of neutriono’s and observed number of neutrinos predicted
by Standard Model (SM).
6.1.2 In SM neutrino’s are massless
The solar neutrino problem was a major discrepancy between mea-
surements of the numbers of neutrinos flowing through the earth
and theoretical models of the solar interior, lasting from the mid-
1960s to about 2002. The discrepancy has since been resolved by
new understanding of neutrino physics, requiring a modification of
the Standard Model of particle physics specifically, neutrino oscil-
lation. Essentially, as neutrinos have mass, they can change from
the type that had been expected to be produced in the Sun’s in-
terior into two types that would not be caught by the detectors in
use at the time late 1960s.
Measurements: In the late 1960s, Ray Davis’s and John N. Bah-
call’s Homestake Experiment was the first to measure the flux of
neutrinos from the Sun and detect a deficit. The experiment used a
chlorine-based detector. Many subsequent radiochemical and water
Cherenkov detectors confirmed the deficit, including the Sudbury
Neutrino Observatory.

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The expected number of solar neutrinos had been computed based

on the standard solar model which Bahcall had helped to establish
and which gives a detailed account of the Sun’s internal operation.
In 2002 Ray Davis and Masatoshi Koshiba won part of the Nobel
Prize in Physics for experimental work that found the number of
solar neutrinos was around a third of the number predicted by the
standard solar model.

6.2 Resolution of the Solar-neutrino Problem

The solar neutrino problem was resolved with an improved under-
standing of the properties of neutrinos. As discussed already, ac-
cording to the Standard Model of particle physics, there are three
different kinds of neutrinos 1) electron neutrinos ( (νe ) (which are
the ones produced in the Sun and the ones detected by the above-
mentioned experiments, in particular the chlorine-detector Homes-
take Mine experiment), 2) muon neutrinos (νµ ) and 3) tau neutri-
nos (ντ ) . Through the 1970s, it was widely believed that neutrinos
were massless and their types were invariant. However, in 1968
Pontecorvo proposed that if neutrinos had mass, then they could
change from one type to another. Thus, the ‘missing’ solar neu-
trinos could be electron neutrinos which changed into other types
along the way to Earth and therefore were not seen by the detec-
tors in the Homestake Mine and contemporary neutrino observato-
ries. The supernova 1987A produced an indication that neutrinos
might have mass, because of the difference in time of arrival of
the neutrinos detected at Kamiokande and IMB. However, because
very few neutrino events were detected it was difficult to draw any
conclusions with certainty. The first strong evidence for neutrino
oscillation came in 1998 from the Super-Kamiokande collaboration
in Japan. It produced observations consistent with muon-neutrinos
(produced in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays) changing into
tau-neutrinos. What was proved was that fewer neutrinos were de-

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tected coming through the Earth than could be detected coming

directly above the detector. Not only that, their observations only
concerned muon neutrinos coming from the interaction of cosmic
rays with the Earth’s atmosphere. No tau neutrinos were observed
at Super-Kamiokande. The convincing evidence for solar neutrino
oscillation came in 2001 from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
(SNO) in Canada. It detected all types of neutrinos coming from
the Sun and was able to distinguish between electron-neutrinos and
the other two flavors (but could not distinguish the muon and tau
flavours), by uniquely using heavy water as the detection medium.
After extensive statistical analysis, it was found that about 35% of
the arriving solar neutrinos are electron-neutrinos, with the others
being muon- or tau-neutrinos. The total number of detected neu-
trinos agrees quite well with the earlier predictions from nuclear
physics, based on the fusion reactions inside the Sun. In particle
physics, neutral particle oscillation is the transmutation of a parti-
cle with zero electric charge into another neutral particle due to a
change of a non-zero internal quantum number via an interaction
that does not conserve that quantum number. For example, a neu-
tron cannot transmute into an antineutron as that would violate
the conservation of baryon number.

6.3 India-based Neutrino Observatory

India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is a Particle Physics
Research Project under construction to study primarily, the atmo-
spheric neutrinos in a 1,300 meters (4,300 ft) deep cave under Ino
Peak near Theni, Tamil Nadu, India. This project is notable in
that, it is anticipated to provide a precise measurement of neutrino
mixing parameters. The project is a multi-institute collaboration
and one of the biggest experimental Particle Physics projects un-
dertaken in India. The project was originally to be completed in
2015 at an estimated cost of 1,500 crores, has been cleared by the

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Antony Prakash Monteiro et al.

Ministry of Environment (India) for construction in the Bodi West

Hills Reserved Forest in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu. Al-
though delayed, the project is underway. When completed, the
main magnetized iron calorimeter (ICAL) experiment include the
world’s most massive magnet, four times larger than the 12,500-
tonne magnet in the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at CERN in
Geneva, Switzerland.
The Primary goals of the INO are the following.
6.3.1 Unambiguous and more precise determination of Neutrino
oscillation parameters using atmospheric neutrinos.
6.3.2Study of matter effects through electric charge identification,
that may lead to the determination of the unknown sign of one of
the mass differences.
6.3.3 Study of charge-conjugation and charge parity (CP) violation
in the leptonic sector as well as possible charge-conjugation, parity,
time-reversal (CPT) violation studies.
6.3.4 Study of Kolar events, possible identification of very-high en-
ergy neutrinos and multi-muon events.

The Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Takaaki Kajita

and Arthur McDonald for discovering that elusive subatomic par-
ticles called neutrinos weigh something more than nothing. Named
after the Italian for ‘little neutral one’, neutrinos have no electric
charge and were long thought to have zero mass, but Kajita at
the University of Tokyo and McDonald at Queen’s University in
Kingston, Canada, showed otherwise. With two separate detectors
built deep underground, one a kilometer beneath a mountain in
Gifu prefecture, and the other 2 km down an old nickel mine in
Ontario, the scientists discovered that neutrinos can flip from one
form to another as they hurtle through space a chameleon-like be-
havior that proves they have mass. The Nobel committee said, the
discovery had ‘changed our understanding of the innermost work-

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ings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe’.
Asked by reporters in a call following the Nobel announcement how
it felt to have won the prize, McDonald described the discovery as a
‘eureka moment’ and said, ‘It’s a very daunting experience needless
to say. Fortunately, I have many colleagues as well who share this
prize with me’.

7 Grand Unification Theory (GUT)

GUT is the basic theory developed to unify the strong with the elec-
troweak theory. Beginning in the early seventies, many people have
been working on the obvious next step, combining the strong force
with the electroweak force. Several different schemes for imple-
menting this grand unification are now on the table, and although
it is too soon to draw any definitive conclusions, some of the early
results are promising. In QCD strong coupling decreases at short
distances so do the weak coupling (αw ). Also, the electromagnetic
coupling (α) which is smallest of the three, increases. The question
addressed is: Will all these couplings converge to a common limit-
ing value at extremely high energies. From the functional form of
the coupling constants it is estimated that at 1015 GeV the three
forces coupling constant should be the same (see figure below). In
the simplest version of the GUT the gauge group describing all in-
teractions is SU(5) which contains as its subgroup the gauge group
SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1). The quarks and leptons are put in the same
representations of the group. There are 24 gauge bosons. One of
the important predictions of the GUT is that proton is not a sta-
ble particle, although its half-life is 1031 years (at least 1020 times
the age of the universe). The hectic search for the decay of proton
has met with negative result. If grand unification works, all the
elementary particle physics will be reduced to the action of a single
force. The final step then will be to bring in gravity, the dream of

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Antony Prakash Monteiro et al.

Einstein. Many theorists are already working in this direction.

Figure 8: Forces Merge at High Energies

8 Beyond the Standard Model

8.1 Short Comings in Standard Model
There are many short comings in the standard model such as the
strong CP problem, neutrino oscillations, matter-anti matter sym-
metry, and the dark matter and dark energy etc. Another problem
with the standard model is that it incorporates only three of the
four fundamental forces, omitting gravity. The model is also un-
successful in explaining why gravity is so much weaker than the
electromagnetic force or strong forces. Also, SM cannot provide

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justification for the three generations of quarks and leptons with

such a diverse mass scale. The hierarchy problem is also associated
with the Higgs boson mass. Another problem with the SM is it
describes only visible matter, and cannot explain the nature of the
dark matter and dark energy. Many attempts in the theoretical
and experimental physics are going on to extend the SM through
super symmetry or new theories like Minimal Supersymetric Stan-
dard Model (MSSM), string theory and extra dimensions. In spite
of these deficiencies, the SM is the most successful theory of particle
physics to date.

8.2 Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Dark matter is a hypothetical kind of matter that cannot be seen
with telescopes but would account for most of the matter in the
universe. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred
from its gravitational effects on visible matter, on radiation, and
on the large-scale structure of the universe. Dark matter has not
been detected directly, making it one of the greatest mysteries in
modern astrophysics. Hence, dark matter refers to the invisible non
luminous matter in the universe which does not interact with the
electromagnetic radiation. This is held as a direct evidence of the
existence of the dark matter. According to the Virial Theorem, the
total energy should be half of the potential energy. But, experimen-
tally the total kinetic energy is found to be much greater than the
total gravitational binding energy of the galaxies. It is said that
dark matter is able to bend the light. The Swiss astrophysicist
Fritz Zwicky, of the CIT in 1933 applied the virial theorem to the
Coma cluster of galaxies and obtained evidence for unseen mass.
The 4.9% of the matter of the universe is ordinary matter and 26.8
% is composed of dark matter and 68.3 % is thought to consist of
Dark energy. Many Particle Physics candidates for Dark Matter
have been proposed and several projects to detect them directly or

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under way. The probable candidates for the dark Matter are 1)
exotic new particles 2) black holes and 3) neutrinos (likely to be
verified at LHC).
The 2011 Nobel prize in Physics was awarded for the accelerat-
ing expansion of the Universe to Saul Perlmutter of Lawrence Berke-
ley National Laboratory and the university of California, Berkeley,
Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University and Adam
Riess of Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science
Institute, Baltimore ‘for the discovery of the accelerating expan-
sion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae’,
a discovery has reshaped our understanding of the cosmos and the
ultimate fate of the universe. The work constrains the ultimate
fate of the universe, addresses Einstein’s cosmological constant, an
element of the theory of relativity. It provides the frame work for
the concept of dark energy which makes up approximately 75% of
the matter and energy in the universe

8.3 Super Symmetry

The Electroweak Theory and the GUT are incomplete. Super sym-
metry relates fermions to bosons. This is a symmetry which tells
us that if we have a boson we must have a fermion partner and
vice versa. Thus, every fermion (quark or lepton) will have a su-
per symmetric (SUSY) spin zero partner (squark, slepton) while
every boson (photon, gluon, W, Z and Higgs) has a spin 1/2 part-
ner. The quantum of gravitational force, the gravitation, which
has spin 2, will have super symmetric partner graviton with spin
3/2. In the super symmetric limit, the particles and their super
symmetric partners should have equal masses. The discovery of su-
per particles would certainly be a triumph of symmetry ideas. At
present, super symmetry is only an attractive idea.

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Figure 9: Dark Matter and Dark Energy

8.4 Superstring Theories

Superstring theories combine the interaction of particle physics with

gravity and are essentially a geometric theory. In string theories
the elementary constituents are not points in space but curves (or
strings) in a D-dimensional space, where D is considerably greater
than 4, with D =10 being the value the current theory requires. The
elementary particles are different vibrational modes of the string.
Since the gravity becomes important at the Planck’s scale (1019 GeV
or 10−33 cm). The superstring theories can be tested only at this
energy, and hence are still far from verification.

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Summary of the Elementary Particles and

Their Interaction

Table 3: Fundamental Interactions (Mc2 = 1 GeV)

Gravitational Electromagnetic Weak Strong

Field Bosons Graviton (?) Photon W+, W- , Z Gluons

Spin-parity 2+ 1- 1-,1+ 1-
Mass(GeV) 0(?) 0 MW = 80.2 GeV 0
MZ = 91.2 GeV
Range ∞ ∞ 10−16 cm 10−13 cm
Source Mass Electric Charge Weak Charge Colour Charge
Coupling
Constant 5×10−40 1/137 1.17×10−5 αs ≤1
Typical cross
section, m2 - 10−33 10−39 10−30
Typical Life
Time , sec. - 10−20 10−10 10−23

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

Table 4: Quantum Numbers of the Quarks, Q = I3 + 21 (B+

S+C+ B∗ +T) (Here B denotes the Baryon Number and
B∗ denotes the Bottom Quantum Number)

Flavour I I3 B S C B∗ T Q Effective Bare

Mass in Mass
Baryons MeV/C2
MeV/C2

u 1/2 1/2 1/3 0 0 0 0 2/3 363 4.2

d 1/2 -1/2 1/3 0 0 0 0 -1/3 363 7.5
s 0 0 1/3 -1 0 0 0 -1/3 538 150
c 0 0 1/3 0 1 0 0 2/3 1500 1100
b 0 0 1/3 0 0 -1 0 -1/3 4700 4200
t 0 0 1/3 0 0 0 1 2/3 1,74,000 1,74,000

Table 5: Fundamental Leptons

Leptons J Mass MeV/c2 Lifetime

e− 1/2 0.511099907 Stable

µ− 1/2 105.658389 2.197×10−6 s
τ− 1/2 1777.0 0.3 (291 + 1.5 ) x 10−15 s
νe 1/2 < 10 eV Stable
νµ 1/2 < 0.16 MeV Stable
ντ 1/2 < 18 MeV Stable

9 Conclusion
The field of elementary-particle physics has made dramatic progress
over the past 25 years in understanding the fundamental structure

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Antony Prakash Monteiro et al.

Table 6: Fundamental Bosons

Gauge bosons JPC Mass (GeV/c2 ) Width

GeV

Photon 1−− < 10−26 Stable

Gluon 1− 0 Stable
Weak bosons
W± 1± 80.33±0.15 Γ́=2.07±0.06
Z 1± 91.187±0.007 Γ́=2.49±0.01

Table 7: Conservation Laws

[Link] Conservation Law Strong Electromagnetic Weak

1 Baryon Number (B) Yes Yes Yes

2 Lepton Number Yes Yes Yes
(Le ,Lµ , and Lτ ) are Separately
conserved
3 Iso-spin (I) Yes No No
4 Third Component of Iso-spin Yes Yes No
(I3 )
5 Strangness (S) Yes Yes No
6 Electric Charge (Q) Yes Yes Yes
7 Parity (P) Yes Yes No
8 Charge Conjugation (C) Yes Yes No
9 CP Yes Yes No
10 CPT Yes Yes Yes
11 Energy, Momentum and Yes Yes Yes
Angular Momentum

of matter. Recent discoveries and technological advances are en-

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

Figure 10: Leptons:List of the Fundamental Particles

Leptons and corresponding anti particles; Total (6 x
2=12),Qurks: Quarks and corresponding anti-particles;
Total (6x3x2=36);(Each quark comes in three colors)

abling high-energy physicists to address such compelling scientific

issues as why elementary particles have mass, the excess of matter
over antimatter in our universe, and the fundamental nature of the
breaking of electroweak symmetry. In this article an attempt has
been made to explain the fundamental particles, fundamental forces
and their interactions. The article also gives information about the
current experimental facilities to detect elementary particles. The
complete list of our understanding of the elementary particles, and
their interactions and the conservation laws obeyed by them are
listed in Tables 3-7, Figure 10 and Figure 11.

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Antony Prakash Monteiro et al.

Figure 11: Leptons: Leptons and corresponding anti par-

ticles; Total (6 x 2=12),Qurks: Quarks and correspond-
ing anti-particles; Total (6x3x2=36);(Each quark comes in
three colors),Gauge bosons: Photons, Gluons (8), W ± , Z
and the Higgs particle; Total 13,
Total number of fundamental particles 61

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

References
David Griffiths, (1987). Introduction to Elementary Particles, John
Wiley and Sons, Inc., (ISBN 0-471- 43132-X).

Donald H. Perkins, (2000). Introduction to High Energy Physics,

fourth edition, Cambridge University Press, (ISBN 0-521-62196-8)

Kurt Gottfried, Victor F. Weisskopf, (1986).

Concepts of Particle Physics, Volume I, Oxford University Press,
(ISBN 0-19-504373).

Leon M. Lederman, David N. Schramm, (1989),

From Quarks to the Cosmos: Tools of Discovery, Scientific Ameri-
can Library,(ISBN 0-7167-6012-6).

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Appendix I
SU(3) Quark Model Baryons
Baryon Octets and Decouplets

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 Introduction to Elementary Particles

SU(3) Quark Model Mesons

Meson Nonets

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