Particle physics

protons, neutrons, pions, and other hadrons

Very simplified illustrations of protons, neutrons, pions, and other hadrons show that they are made of quarks
(yellow spheres) and antiquarks (green spheres), which are bound together by gluons (bent ribbons).(more)
One of the most significant branches of contemporary physics is the study of the
fundamental subatomic constituents of matter, the elementary particles. This field, also
called high-energy physics, emerged in the 1930s out of the developing experimental
areas of nuclear and cosmic-ray physics. Initially investigators studied cosmic rays, the
very-high-energy extraterrestrial radiations that fall upon Earth and interact in the
atmosphere (see below The methodology of physics). However, after World War II,
scientists gradually began using high-energy particle accelerators to provide subatomic
particles for study. Quantum field theory, a generalization of QED to other types of force
fields, is essential for the analysis of high-energy physics. Subatomic particles cannot be
visualized as tiny analogues of ordinary material objects such as billiard balls, for they
have properties that appear contradictory from the classical viewpoint. That is to say,
while they possess charge, spin, mass, magnetism, and other complex characteristics,
they are nonetheless regarded as pointlike.

During the latter half of the 20th century, a coherent picture evolved of the underlying
strata of matter involving two types of subatomic
particles: fermions (baryons and leptons), which have odd half-integral angular
momentum (spin 1/2, 3/2) and make up ordinary matter; and bosons (gluons, mesons,
and photons), which have integral spins and mediate the fundamental forces of physics.
Leptons (e.g., electrons, muons, taus), gluons, and photons are believed to be truly
fundamental particles. Baryons (e.g., neutrons, protons) and mesons (e.g., pions,
kaons), collectively known as hadrons, are believed to be formed from indivisible
elements known as quarks, which have never been isolated.
Quarks come in six types, or “flavours,” and have matching antiparticles, known as
antiquarks. Quarks have charges that are either positive two-thirds or negative one-
third of the electron’s charge, while antiquarks have the opposite charges. Like quarks,
each lepton has an antiparticle with properties that mirror those of its partner (the
antiparticle of the negatively charged electron is the positive electron, or positron; that
of the neutrino is the antineutrino). In addition to their electric and magnetic
properties, quarks participate in both the strong force (which binds them together) and
the weak force (which underlies certain forms of radioactivity), while leptons take part
in only the weak force.

Baryons, such as neutrons and protons, are formed by combining three quarks—thus
baryons have a charge of −1, 0, or 1. Mesons, which are the particles that mediate the
strong force inside the atomic nucleus, are composed of one quark and one antiquark;
all known mesons have a charge of −2, −1, 0, 1, or 2. Most of the possible quark
combinations, or hadrons, have very short lifetimes, and many of them have never been
seen, though additional ones have been observed with each new generation of more
powerful particle accelerators.

The quantum fields through which quarks and leptons interact with each other and with
themselves consist of particle-like objects called quanta (from
which quantum mechanics derives its name). The first known quanta were those of
the electromagnetic field; they are also called photons because light consists of them. A
modern unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions, known as
the electroweak theory, proposes that the weak force involves the exchange of particles
about 100 times as massive as protons. These massive quanta have been observed—
namely, two charged particles, W+ and W−, and a neutral one, W0.

In the theory of the strong force known as quantum chromodynamics (QCD), eight
quanta, called gluons, bind quarks to form baryons and also bind quarks to antiquarks
to form mesons, the force itself being dubbed the “colour force.” (This unusual use of the
term colour is a somewhat forced analogue of ordinary colour mixing.) Quarks are said
to come in three colours—red, blue, and green. (The opposites of these imaginary
colours, minus-red, minus-blue, and minus-green, are ascribed to antiquarks.) Only
certain colour combinations, namely colour-neutral, or “white” (i.e., equal mixtures of
the above colours cancel out one another, resulting in no net colour), are conjectured to
exist in nature in an observable form. The gluons and quarks themselves, being
coloured, are permanently confined (deeply bound within the particles of which they are
a part), while the colour-neutral composites such as protons can be directly observed.
One consequence of colour confinement is that the observable particles are either
electrically neutral or have charges that are integral multiples of the charge of the
electron. A number of specific predictions of QCD have been experimentally tested and
found correct.

Quantum mechanics
quantum mechanics and probability
Brian Greene explains how the revolutionary idea of quantum mechanics is that reality evolves through a game
of chance described by probabilities. This video is an episode in his Daily Equation series.(more)
See all videos for this article
Although the various branches of physics differ in their experimental methods and
theoretical approaches, certain general principles apply to all of them. The forefront of
contemporary advances in physics lies in the submicroscopic regime, whether it be in
atomic, nuclear, condensed-matter, plasma, or particle physics, or in quantum optics, or
even in the study of stellar structure. All are based upon quantum theory (i.e., quantum
mechanics and quantum field theory) and relativity, which together form the theoretical
foundations of modern physics. Many physical quantities whose classical counterparts
vary continuously over a range of possible values are in quantum theory constrained to
have discontinuous, or discrete, values. Furthermore, the intrinsically deterministic
character of values in classical physics is replaced in quantum theory
by intrinsic uncertainty.

According to quantum theory, electromagnetic radiation does not always consist of

continuous waves; instead it must be viewed under some circumstances as a collection
of particle-like photons, the energy and momentum of each being directly proportional
to its frequency (or inversely proportional to its wavelength, the photons still possessing
some wavelike characteristics). Conversely, electrons and other objects that appear as
particles in classical physics are endowed by quantum theory with wavelike properties
as well, such a particle’s quantum wavelength being inversely proportional to its
momentum. In both instances, the proportionality constant is the characteristic
quantum of action (action being defined as energy × time)—that is to say, Planck’s
constant divided by 2π, or ℏ.
Bohr theory
The Bohr theory sees an electron (left) as a point mass occupying certain energy levels. Wave mechanics sees
an electron as a wave washing back and forth in the atom in certain patterns only. The wave patterns and
energy levels correspond exactly.(more)
In principle, all of atomic and molecular physics, including the structure of atoms and
their dynamics, the periodic table of elements and their chemical behaviour, as well as
the spectroscopic, electrical, and other physical properties of atoms, molecules, and
condensed matter, can be accounted for by quantum mechanics. Roughly speaking, the
electrons in the atom must fit around the nucleus as some sort of standing wave (as
given by the Schrödinger equation) analogous to the waves on a plucked violin or guitar
string. As the fit determines the wavelength of the quantum wave, it necessarily
determines its energy state. Consequently, atomic systems are restricted to certain
discrete, or quantized, energies. When an atom undergoes a discontinuous transition, or
quantum jump, its energy changes abruptly by a sharply defined amount, and
a photon of that energy is emitted when the energy of the atom decreases, or is absorbed
in the opposite case.

Although atomic energies can be sharply defined, the positions of the electrons within
the atom cannot be, quantum mechanics giving only the probability for the electrons to
have certain locations. This is a consequence of the feature that distinguishes quantum
theory from all other approaches to physics, the uncertainty principle of the German
physicist Werner Heisenberg. This principle holds that measuring a particle’s position
with increasing precision necessarily increases the uncertainty as to the particle’s
momentum, and conversely. The ultimate degree of uncertainty is controlled by the
magnitude of Planck’s constant, which is so small as to have no apparent effects except
in the world of microstructures. In the latter case, however, because both a particle’s
position and its velocity or momentum must be known precisely at some instant in order
to predict its future history, quantum theory precludes such certain prediction and thus
escapes determinism.

Compton effect
When a beam of X-rays is aimed at a target material, some of the beam is deflected, and the scattered X-rays
have a greater wavelength than the original beam. The physicist Arthur Holly Compton concluded that this
phenomenon could only be explained if the X-rays were understood to be made up of discrete bundles or
particles, now called photons, that lost some of their energy in the collisions with electrons in the target
material and then scattered at lower energy.(more)
The complementary wave and particle aspects, or wave–particle duality, of
electromagnetic radiation and of material particles furnish another illustration of the
uncertainty principle. When an electron exhibits wavelike behaviour, as in
the phenomenon of electron diffraction, this excludes its exhibiting particle-like
behaviour in the same observation. Similarly, when electromagnetic radiation in the
form of photons interacts with matter, as in the Compton effect in which X-ray photons
collide with electrons, the result resembles a particle-like collision and the wave nature
of electromagnetic radiation is precluded. The principle of complementarity, asserted by
the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who pioneered the theory of atomic structure, states
that the physical world presents itself in the form of various complementary pictures, no
one of which is by itself complete, all of these pictures being essential for our total
understanding. Thus both wave and particle pictures are needed for understanding
either the electron or the photon.

Although it deals with probabilities and uncertainties, the quantum theory has been
spectacularly successful in explaining otherwise inaccessible atomic phenomena and in
thus far meeting every experimental test. Its predictions, especially those of QED, are
the most precise and the best checked of any in physics; some of them have been tested
and found accurate to better than one part per billion.
Relativistic mechanics
In classical physics, space is conceived as having the absolute character of an empty
stage in which events in nature unfold as time flows onward independently; events
occurring simultaneously for one observer are presumed to be simultaneous for any
other; mass is taken as impossible to create or destroy; and a particle given sufficient
energy acquires a velocity that can increase without limit. The special theory of
relativity, developed principally by Albert Einstein in 1905 and now so adequately
confirmed by experiment as to have the status of physical law, shows that all these, as
well as other apparently obvious assumptions, are false.

Specific and unusual relativistic effects flow directly from Einstein’s two basic
postulates, which are formulated in terms of so-called inertial reference frames. These
are reference systems that move in such a way that in them Isaac Newton’s first law,
the law of inertia, is valid. The set of inertial frames consists of all those that move with
constant velocity with respect to each other (accelerating frames therefore being
excluded). Einstein’s postulates are: (1) All observers, whatever their state
of motion relative to a light source, measure the same speed for light; and (2) The laws
of physics are the same in all inertial frames.

length contraction and time dilation

As an object approaches the speed of light, an observer sees the object become shorter and its time interval
become longer, relative to the length and time interval when the object is at rest.(more)
The first postulate, the constancy of the speed of light, is an experimental fact from
which follow the distinctive relativistic phenomena of space contraction (or Lorentz-
FitzGerald contraction), time dilation, and the relativity of simultaneity: as measured by
an observer assumed to be at rest, an object in motion is contracted along the direction
of its motion, and moving clocks run slow; two spatially separated events that
are simultaneous for a stationary observer occur sequentially for a moving observer. As
a consequence, space intervals in three-dimensional space are related to time intervals,
thus forming so-called four-dimensional space-time.

The second postulate is called the principle of relativity. It is equally valid in

classical mechanics (but not in classical electrodynamics until Einstein reinterpreted it).
This postulate implies, for example, that table tennis played on a train moving with
constant velocity is just like table tennis played with the train at rest, the states of rest
and motion being physically indistinguishable. In relativity theory, mechanical
quantities such as momentum and energy have forms that are different from their
classical counterparts but give the same values for speeds that are small compared to the
speed of light, the maximum permissible speed in nature (about 300,000 kilometres per
second, or 186,000 miles per second). According to relativity, mass and energy are
equivalent and interchangeable quantities, the equivalence being expressed by
Einstein’s famous mass-energy equation E = mc2, where m is an object’s mass and c is
the speed of light.

The general theory of relativity is Einstein’s theory of gravitation, which uses the
principle of the equivalence of gravitation and locally accelerating frames of reference.
Einstein’s theory has special mathematical beauty; it generalizes the “flat” space-time
concept of special relativity to one of curvature. It forms the background of all modern
cosmological theories. In contrast to some vulgarized popular notions of it, which
confuse it with moral and other forms of relativism, Einstein’s theory does not argue
that “all is relative.” On the contrary, it is largely a theory based upon those physical
attributes that do not change, or, in the language of the theory, that are invariant.
Conservation laws and symmetry
Since the early period of modern physics, there have been conservation laws, which state
that certain physical quantities, such as the total electric charge of an isolated system of
bodies, do not change in the course of time. In the 20th century it has been proved
mathematically that such laws follow from the symmetry properties of nature, as
expressed in the laws of physics. The conservation of mass-energy of an isolated system,
for example, follows from the assumption that the laws of physics may depend upon
time intervals but not upon the specific time at which the laws are applied. The
symmetries and the conservation laws that follow from them are regarded by modern
physicists as being even more fundamental than the laws themselves, since they are able
to limit the possible forms of laws that may be proposed in the future.

Conservation laws are valid in classical, relativistic, and quantum theory for mass-
energy, momentum, angular momentum, and electric charge. (In nonrelativistic
physics, mass and energy are separately conserved.) Momentum, a directed quantity
equal to the mass of a body multiplied by its velocity or to the total mass of two or more
bodies multiplied by the velocity of their centre of mass, is conserved when, and only
when, no external force acts. Similarly angular momentum, which is related to spinning
motions, is conserved in a system upon which no net turning force, called torque, acts.
External forces and torques break the symmetry conditions from which the respective
conservation laws follow.

In quantum theory, and especially in the theory of elementary particles, there are
additional symmetries and conservation laws, some exact and others only
approximately valid, which play no significant role in classical physics. Among these are
the conservation of so-called quantum numbers related to left-right reflection symmetry
of space (called parity) and to the reversal symmetry of motion (called time reversal).
These quantum numbers are conserved in all processes other than the weak force.

Other symmetry properties not obviously related to space and time (and referred to
as internal symmetries) characterize the different families of elementary particles and,
by extension, their composites. Quarks, for example, have a property called baryon
number, as do protons, neutrons, nuclei, and unstable quark composites. All of these
except the quarks are known as baryons. A failure of baryon-number conservation
would exhibit itself, for instance, by a proton decaying into lighter non-baryonic
particles. Indeed, intensive search for such proton decay has been conducted, but so far
it has been fruitless. Similar symmetries and conservation laws hold for an analogously
defined lepton number, and they also appear, as does the law of baryon conservation, to
hold absolutely.
Fundamental forces and fields

fission
Sequence of events in the fission of a uranium nucleus by a neutron.
The four basic forces of nature, in order of increasing strength, are thought to be: (1) the
gravitational force between particles with mass; (2) the electromagnetic force between
particles with charge or magnetism or both; (3) the colour force, or strong force,
between quarks; and (4) the weak force by which, for example, quarks can change their
type, so that a neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino. The
strong force that binds protons and neutrons into nuclei and is responsible
for fission, fusion, and other nuclear reactions is in principle derived from the colour
force. Nuclear physics is thus related to QCD as chemistry is to atomic physics.

According to quantum field theory, each of the four fundamental interactions is

mediated by the exchange of quanta, called vector gauge bosons, which share certain
common characteristics. All have an intrinsic spin of one unit, measured in terms
of Planck’s constant ℏ. (Leptons and quarks each have one-half unit of spin.) Gauge
theory studies the group of transformations, or Lie group, that leaves the basic physics
of a quantum field invariant. Lie groups, which are named for the 19th-century
Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie, possess a special type
of symmetry and continuity that made them first useful in the study of differential
equations on smooth manifolds (an abstract mathematical space for modeling physical
processes). This symmetry was first seen in the equations for electromagnetic potentials,
quantities from which electromagnetic fields can be derived. It is possessed in pure form
by the eight massless gluons of QCD, but in the electroweak theory—the unified theory
of electromagnetic and weak force interactions—gauge symmetry is partially broken, so
that only the photon remains massless, with the other gauge bosons (W+, W−, and Z)
acquiring large masses. Theoretical physicists continue to seek a further unification of
QCD with the electroweak theory and, more ambitiously still, to unify them with a
quantum version of gravity in which the force would be transmitted by massless quanta
of two units of spin called gravitons.

The methodology of physics

Physics has evolved and continues to evolve without any single strategy. Essentially an
experimental science, refined measurements can reveal unexpected behaviour. On the
other hand, mathematical extrapolation of existing theories into new theoretical areas,
critical reexamination of apparently obvious but untested assumptions, argument
by symmetry or analogy, aesthetic judgment, pure accident, and hunch—each of these
plays a role (as in all of science). Thus, for example, the quantum hypothesis proposed
by the German physicist Max Planck was based on observed departures of the character
of blackbody radiation (radiation emitted by a heated body that absorbs all radiant
energy incident upon it) from that predicted by classical electromagnetism. The English
physicist P.A.M. Dirac predicted the existence of the positron in making a relativistic
extension of the quantum theory of the electron. The elusive neutrino, without mass
or charge, was hypothesized by the German physicist Wolfgang Pauli as an alternative to
abandoning the conservation laws in the beta-decay process. Maxwell conjectured that if
changing magnetic fields create electric fields (which was known to be so), then
changing electric fields might create magnetic fields, leading him to the electromagnetic
theory of light. Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity was based on a critical
reexamination of the meaning of simultaneity, while his general theory of relativity rests
on the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass.
Although the tactics may vary from problem to problem, the physicist invariably tries to
make unsolved problems more tractable by constructing a series of idealized models,
with each successive model being a more realistic representation of the actual physical
situation. Thus, in the theory of gases, the molecules are at first imagined to be particles
that are as structureless as billiard balls with vanishingly small dimensions. This ideal
picture is then improved on step by step.

The correspondence principle, a useful guiding principle for extending theoretical

interpretations, was formulated by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr in the context of the
quantum theory. It asserts that when a valid theory is generalized to a broader arena,
the new theory’s predictions must agree with the old one in the overlapping region in
which both are applicable. For example, the more comprehensive theory of
physical optics must yield the same result as the more restrictive theory of ray optics
whenever wave effects proportional to the wavelength of light are negligible on account
of the smallness of that wavelength. Similarly, quantum mechanics must yield the same
results as classical mechanics in circumstances when Planck’s constant can be
considered as negligibly small. Likewise, for speeds small compared to the speed of
light (as for baseballs in play), relativistic mechanics must coincide with Newtonian
classical mechanics.

Some ways in which experimental and theoretical physicists attack their problems are
illustrated by the following examples.

The modern experimental study of elementary particles began with the detection of new
types of unstable particles produced in the atmosphere by primary radiation, the latter
consisting mainly of high-energy protons arriving from space. The new particles were
detected in Geiger counters and identified by the tracks they left in instruments
called cloud chambers and in photographic plates. After World War II, particle physics,
then known as high-energy nuclear physics, became a major field of science. Today’s
high-energy particle accelerators can be several kilometres in length, cost hundreds (or
even thousands) of millions of dollars, and accelerate particles to enormous energies
(trillions of electron volts). Experimental teams, such as those that discovered the W+,
W−, and Z quanta of the weak force at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics
(CERN) in Geneva, which is funded by its 20 European member states, can have 100 or
more physicists from many countries, along with a larger number of technical workers
serving as support personnel. A variety of visual and electronic techniques are used to
interpret and sort the huge amounts of data produced by their efforts, and particle-
physics laboratories are major users of the most advanced technology, be it
superconductive magnets or supercomputers.

Theoretical physicists use mathematics both as a logical tool for the development of
theory and for calculating predictions of the theory to be compared with experiment.
Newton, for one, invented integral calculus to solve the following problem, which was
essential to his formulation of the law of universal gravitation: Assuming that the
attractive force between any pair of point particles is inversely proportional to the
square of the distance separating them, how does a spherical distribution of particles,
such as Earth, attract another nearby object? Integral calculus, a procedure for summing
many small contributions, yields the simple solution that Earth itself acts as a point
particle with all its mass concentrated at the centre. In modern physics, Dirac predicted
the existence of the then-unknown positive electron (or positron) by finding an equation
for the electron that would combine quantum mechanics and the special theory of
relativity.
Relations between physics and other disciplines and society
Influence of physics on related disciplines
Because physics elucidates the simplest fundamental questions in nature on which there
can be a consensus, it is hardly surprising that it has had a profound impact on other
fields of science, on philosophy, on the worldview of the developed world, and, of
course, on technology.

Indeed, whenever a branch of physics has reached such a degree of maturity that its
basic elements are comprehended in general principles, it has moved from basic to
applied physics and thence to technology. Thus almost all current activity in classical
physics consists of applied physics, and its contents form the core of many branches
of engineering. Discoveries in modern physics are converted with increasing rapidity
into technical innovations and analytical tools for associated disciplines. There are, for
example, such nascent fields as nuclear and biomedical engineering,
quantum chemistry and quantum optics, and radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray astronomy,
as well as such analytic tools as radioisotopes, spectroscopy, and lasers, which all stem
directly from basic physics.

Apart from its specific applications, physics—especially Newtonian mechanics—has

become the prototype of the scientific method, its experimental and analytic methods
sometimes being imitated (and sometimes inappropriately so) in fields far from the
related physical sciences. Some of the organizational aspects of physics, based partly on
the successes of the radar and atomic-bomb projects of World War II, also have been
imitated in large-scale scientific projects, as, for example, in astronomy and space
research.

The great influence of physics on the branches of philosophy concerned with

the conceptual basis of human perceptions and understanding of nature, such
as epistemology, is evidenced by the earlier designation of physics itself as natural
philosophy. Present-day philosophy of science deals largely, though not exclusively, with
the foundations of physics. Determinism, the philosophical doctrine that the universe is
a vast machine operating with strict causality whose future is determined in all detail by
its present state, is rooted in Newtonian mechanics, which obeys that principle.
Moreover, the schools of materialism, naturalism, and empiricism have in large degree
considered physics to be a model for philosophical inquiry. An extreme position is taken
by the logical positivists, whose radical distrust of the reality of anything not directly
observable leads them to demand that all significant statements must be formulated in
the language of physics.
The uncertainty principle of quantum theory has prompted a reexamination of the
question of determinism, and its other philosophical implications remain in doubt.
Particularly problematic is the matter of the meaning of measurement, for which recent
theories and experiments confirm some apparently noncausal predictions of standard
quantum theory. It is fair to say that though physicists agree that quantum theory
works, they still differ as to what it means.