TheStandardModel. Particle Physics Fundamentals - the fundamentals of elementary particle physics - elementary and fundamental particles in physics. One of the most startling discoveries over the 20th century was how many elementary particles that exist in the universe. Though the concept of fundamental, indivisible particles goes back to the ancient Greeks (a concept known as atomism), it wasn't really until the 1900s that physicists began to explore what was going inside matter at the smallest levels. In fact, quantum physics predicts that there are just 18 types of elementary particles (16 of which have been detected by experiment already). It is the goal of elementary particle physics to continue searching for the remaining particles. The Standard Model of Particle Physics The Standard Model of Particle Physics is at the core of modern physics.
Groups of Particles If there's one thing that particle physicists seem to enjoy, it's dividing up particles into groups. Elementary Particles - The smallest constituents of matter and energy, these particles which don't seem to be made from combinations of smaller particles. Particle Physics Glossary. Ab (atobarn): 10-18barns. A unit used to measure cross-section. The inverse of this unit is used to measure integrated luminosity. accelerator: Accelerators are ring-shaped or linear devices that accelerate charged particles. More powerful than any other microscope, high-energy accelerators allow physicists to study matter at the smallest scale human beings have ever seen, exposing the quarks inside a proton.
At the same time, high-energy accelerators can produce collisions that recreate the conditions of the early universe ? AGS (Alternating Gradient Synchrotron): An accelerator based at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). AMANDA (Antartic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array): A Cherenkov detector, embedding in the ice located at the south pole, designed to look at very high energy neutrinos. Antiquark: The anti-matter partner of the quark. antiparticle: The generic term for an anti-matter partner of a particle. antiproton: The anti-matter partner of the proton. Partice Physics Images. The Particle Adventure. Particle physics. Subatomic particles[edit] Modern particle physics research is focused on subatomic particles, including atomic constituents such as electrons, protons, and neutrons (protons and neutrons are composite particles called baryons, made of quarks), produced by radioactive and scattering processes, such as photons, neutrinos, and muons, as well as a wide range of exotic particles.
Dynamics of particles is also governed by quantum mechanics; they exhibit wave–particle duality, displaying particle-like behavior under certain experimental conditions and wave-like behavior in others. In more technical terms, they are described by quantum state vectors in a Hilbert space, which is also treated in quantum field theory. Following the convention of particle physicists, the term elementary particles is applied to those particles that are, according to current understanding, presumed to be indivisible and not composed of other particles.[1] History[edit] Standard Model[edit] Theory[edit] Future[edit]