Properties
According to the quark model, the properties of hadrons are primarily determined by their so-called valence quarks. For example, a proton is composed of two up quarks (each with electric charge +2⁄3, for a total of +4⁄3 together) and one down quark (with electric charge −1⁄3). Adding these together yields the proton charge of +1. Although quarks also carry color charge, hadrons must have zero total color charge because of a phenomenon called color confinement. That is, hadrons must be "colorless" or "white". These are the simplest of the two ways: three quarks of different colors, or a quark of one color and an antiquark carrying the corresponding anticolor. Hadrons with the first arrangement are called baryons, and those with the second arrangement are mesons.
Like all subatomic particles, hadrons are assigned quantum numbers corresponding to the representations of the Poincaré group: JPC(m), where J is the spin quantum number, P the intrinsic parity (or P-parity), and C, the charge conjugation (or C-parity), and the particle's mass, m. Note that the mass of a hadron has very little to do with the mass of its valence quarks; rather, due to mass–energy equivalence, most of the mass comes from the large amount of energy associated with the strong interaction. Hadrons may also carry flavor quantum numbers such as isospin (or G parity), and strangeness. All quarks carry an additive, conserved quantum number called a baryon number (B), which is +1⁄3 for quarks and −1⁄3 for antiquarks. This means that baryons (groups of three quarks) have B = 1 while mesons have B = 0.
Hadrons have excited states known as resonances. Each ground state hadron may have several excited states; several hundreds of resonances have been observed in particle physics experiments. Resonances decay extremely quickly (within about 10−24 seconds) via the strong nuclear force.
In other phases of matter the hadrons may disappear. For example, at very high temperature and high pressure, unless there are sufficiently many flavors of quarks, the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) predicts that quarks and gluons will no longer be confined within hadrons because the strength of the strong interaction diminishes with energy. This property, which is known as asymptotic freedom, has been experimentally confirmed in the energy range between 1 GeV (gigaelectronvolt) and 1 TeV (teraelectronvolt).
All free hadrons except the proton (and antiproton) are unstable.
Read more about this topic: Hadron
Famous quotes containing the word properties:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)