Particle physics is a branch of
physics that studies the
elementary subatomic constituents of
matter and
radiation, and their interactions. The field is also called
high energy physics, because many elementary particles do not occur under ambient conditions on Earth. They can only be created artificially during high energy
collisions with other particles in
particle accelerators.
Particle physics has evolved out of its parent field of nuclear physics and is typically still taught in close association with it. Scientific research in this area has produced a long list of particles.
Subatomic particles
of
Physics.]]
Modern particle physics research is focused on
subatomic particles, including atomic constituents such as
electrons,
protons, and
neutrons (protons and neutrons are actually composite particles called
baryons, made of
quarks), particles produced by
radioactive and
scattering processes, such as
photons,
neutrinos, and
muons, as well as a wide range of
exotic particles.
Strictly speaking, the term
particle is a misnomer from classical physics because the dynamics of particle physics are governed by
quantum mechanics. As such, 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,
elementary particles refer to objects such as
electrons and
photons as it is well known that these types of particles display wave-like properties as well.
All particles and their interactions observed to date can almost be described entirely by a quantum field theory called the Standard Model. The Standard Model has 17 species of elementary particles: 12 fermions or 24 if distinguishing antiparticles, 4 vector bosons (5 with antiparticles), and 1 scalar boson. These elementary particles can combine to form composite particles, accounting for the hundreds of other species of particles discovered since the 1960s. The Standard Model has been found to agree with almost all the experimental tests conducted to date. However, most particle physicists believe that it is an incomplete description of nature, and that a more fundamental theory awaits discovery (See Theory of Everything). In recent years, measurements of neutrino mass have provided the first experimental deviations from the Standard Model.
Particle physics has impacted the philosophy of science greatly. Some particle physicists adhere to reductionism, a point of view that has been criticized and defended by philosophers and scientists. Other physicists may defend the philosophy of holism which has commonly been viewed to be reductionism's opposite.
History
The idea that all
matter is composed of
elementary particles dates to at least the 6
th century BC. The philosophical doctrine of
atomism and the nature of elementary particles were studied by
ancient Greek philosophers such as
Leucippus,
Democritus and
Epicurus; ancient
Indian philosophers such as
Kanada,
Dignāga and
Dharmakirti; medieval scientists such as
Alhazen,
Avicenna and
Algazel; and
early modern European physicists such as
Pierre Gassendi,
Robert Boyle and
Isaac Newton. The particle theory of
light was also proposed by Alhazen, Avicenna, Gassendi and Newton. These early ideas were founded in
abstract,
philosophical reasoning rather than
experimentation and
empirical observation.
In the 19th century, John Dalton, through his work on stoichiometry, concluded that each element of nature was composed of a single, unique type of particle. Dalton and his contemporaries believed these were the fundamental particles of nature and thus named them atoms, after the Greek word atomos, meaning "indivisible". However, near the end of the century, physicists discovered that atoms were not, in fact, the fundamental particles of nature, but conglomerates of even smaller particles. The early 20th century explorations of nuclear physics and quantum physics culminated in proofs of nuclear fission in 1939 by Lise Meitner (based on experiments by Otto Hahn), and nuclear fusion by Hans Bethe in the same year. These discoveries gave rise to an active industry of generating one atom from another, even rendering possible (although not profitable) the transmutation of lead into gold (alchemy). They also led to the development of nuclear weapons. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a bewildering variety of particles were found in scattering experiments. This was referred to as the "particle zoo". This term was deprecated after the formulation of the Standard Model during the 1970s in which the large number of particles was explained as combinations of a (relatively) small number of fundamental particles.
The Standard Model
The very current state of the classification of elementary particles is the
Standard Model. It describes the
strong,
weak, and
electromagnetic fundamental interactions, using mediating
gauge bosons. The species of gauge bosons are the
gluons,
, and bosons, and the
photons. The model also contains 24
fundamental particles, which are the constituents of
matter. Finally, it predicts the existence of a type of
boson known as the
Higgs boson, which is yet to be discovered.
Experimental laboratories
In particle physics, the major international laboratories are:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (Long Island, United States). Its main facility is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) which collides heavy ions such as gold ions and polarized protons. It is the world's first heavy ion collider, and the world's only polarized proton collider.
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk, Russia)
CERN, (Franco-Swiss border, near Geneva). Its main project is now the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which had its first beam circulation on 10 September 2008, and is now the world's most energetic collider of protons. It will also be the most energetic collider of heavy ions when it begins colliding lead ions in 2010. Earlier facilities include the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), which was stopped in 2001 and then dismantled to give way for LHC; and the Super Proton Synchrotron, which is being reused as a pre-accelerator for LHC.
DESY (Hamburg, Germany). Its main facility is the Hadron Elektron Ring Anlage (HERA), which collides electrons and positrons with protons.
Fermilab, (Batavia, United States). Its main facility is the Tevatron, which collides protons and antiprotons and was the highest energy particle collider in the world until the Large Hadron Collider surpassed it on 29 November 2009.
KEK, (Tsukuba, Japan). It is the home of a number of experiments such as the K2K experiment, a neutrino oscillation experiment and Belle, an experiment measuring the CP violation of B mesons.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Menlo Park, United States). Its main facility is PEP-II, which collides electrons and positrons.
Many other particle accelerators exist.
The techniques required to do modern experimental particle physics are quite varied and complex, constituting a sub-specialty nearly completely distinct from the theoretical side of the field.
Theory
Theoretical particle physics attempts to develop the models, theoretical framework, and mathematical tools to understand current experiments and make predictions for future experiments. See also
theoretical physics. There are several major interrelated efforts in theoretical particle physics today.
One important branch attempts to better understand the Standard Model and its tests. By extracting the parameters of the Standard Model from experiments with less uncertainty, this work probes the limits of the Standard Model and therefore expands our understanding of nature's building blocks. These efforts are made challenging by the difficulty of calculating quantities in
quantum chromodynamics. Some theorists working in this area refer to themselves as
phenomenologists and may use the tools of
quantum field theory and
effective field theory. Others make use of
lattice field theory and call themselves
lattice theorists.
Another major effort is in model building where model builders develop ideas for what physics may lie beyond the Standard Model (at higher energies or smaller distances). This work is often motivated by the hierarchy problem and is constrained by existing experimental data. It may involve work on supersymmetry, alternatives to the Higgs mechanism, extra spatial dimensions (such as the Randall-Sundrum models), Preon theory, combinations of these, or other ideas.
A third major effort in theoretical particle physics is string theory. String theorists attempt to construct a unified description of quantum mechanics and general relativity by building a theory based on small strings, and branes rather than particles. If the theory is successful, it may be considered a "Theory of Everything".
There are also other areas of work in theoretical particle physics ranging from particle cosmology to loop quantum gravity.
This division of efforts in particle physics is reflected in the names of categories on the arXiv, a preprint archive : hep-th (theory), hep-ph (phenomenology), hep-ex (experiments), hep-lat (lattice gauge theory).
The future
Particle physicists internationally agree on the most important goals of particle physics research in the near and intermediate future. The overarching goal, which is pursued in several distinct ways, is to find and understand what physics may lie beyond the
standard model. There are several powerful experimental reasons to expect new physics, including
dark matter and
neutrino mass. There are also theoretical hints that this new physics should be found at accessible energy scales. Most importantly, though, there may be unexpected and unpredicted surprises which will give us the most opportunity to learn about nature.
Much of the efforts to find this new physics are focused on new collider experiments. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was completed in 2008 to help continue the search for the Higgs boson, supersymmetric particles, and other new physics. An intermediate goal is the construction of the International Linear Collider (ILC) which will complement the LHC by allowing more precise measurements of the properties of newly found particles. In August 2004, a decision for the technology of the ILC was taken but the site has still to be agreed upon.
Additionally, there are important non-collider experiments which also attempt to find and understand physics beyond the Standard Model. One important non-collider effort is the determination of the neutrino masses since these masses may arise from neutrinos mixing with very heavy particles. In addition, cosmological observations provide many useful constraints on the dark matter, although it may be impossible to determine the exact nature of the dark matter without the colliders. Finally, lower bounds on the very long lifetime of the proton put constraints on Grand Unified Theories at energy scales much higher than collider experiments will be able to probe any time soon.
See also
Atomic physics
Beyond the Standard Model
High pressure physics
Fundamental interaction
Introduction to quantum mechanics
List of accelerators in particle physics
List of particles
Magnetic Monopole
Micro black hole
Resonance (particle physics)
Rochester conference
Standard model (mathematical formulation)
Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System
Subatomic particle
Timeline of particle physics
Unparticle physics
References
Further reading
General readers
Frank Close (2004) Particle Physics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280434-0.
--------, Michael Marten, and Christine Sutton (2002) The Particle Odyssey: A Journey to the Heart of the Matter. Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0-19-850486-1.
Ford, Kenneth W. (2005) The Quantum World. Harvard Univ. Press.
Oerter, Robert (2006) The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics. Plume.
Schumm, Bruce A. (2004) Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics. John Hopkins Univ. Press. ISBN 0-8018-7971-X.
Gentle texts
Frank Close (2006) The New Cosmic Onion. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1-58488-798-2.
Lincoln Wolfenstein & Joao P. Silva (2010) Exploring Fundamental Particles . Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-143-983-612-5 .
Coughlan, G. D., J. E. Dodd, and B. M. Gripaios (2006) The Ideas of Particle Physics: An Introduction for Scientists, 3rd ed. Cambridge Univ. Press. An undergraduate text for those not majoring in physics.
Harder
A survey article:
Robinson, Matthew B., Karen R. Bland, Gerald Cleaver, and J. R. Dittmann (2008) "A Simple Introduction to Particle Physics" - Part 1, 135pp. and Part 2, nnnpp. Baylor University Dept. of Physics.
Texts:
External links
The Particle Adventure - educational project sponsored by the Particle Data Group of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
symmetry magazine
Particle physics – it matters - the Institute of Physics
Nobes, Matthew (2002) "Introduction to the Standard Model of Particle Physics" on Kuro5hin: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3a, Part 3b.
CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research
Fermilab
Particle physics
![SLAC at Stanford University. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,[1] is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110907102138im_/http://cdn1.wn.com/pd/fa/df/3ed1d2680ea837071cb183cda4ee_grande.jpg "SLAC at Stanford University. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,[1] is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.")
![SLAC at Stanford University. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,[1] is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110907102138im_/http://cdn0.wn.com/pd/fa/df/3ed1d2680ea837071cb183cda4ee_thumb.jpg "SLAC at Stanford University. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,[1] is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.")
