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Elementary Particles

One of the primary goals in modern physics is to answer the question "What is
the Universe made of?" Often that question reduces to "What is matter and what
holds it together?" This continues the line of investigation started by Democritus,
Dalton and Rutherford.

Modern physics speaks of fundamental building blocks of Nature, where

fundamental takes on a reductionist meaning of simple and structure-less. Many
of the particles we have discussed so far appear simple in their properties. All
electrons have the exact same characteristics (mass, charge, etc.), so we call an
electron fundamental because they are all non-unique.

The search for the origin of matter means the understanding of elementary
particles. And with the advent of holism, the understanding of elementary
particles requires an understanding of not only their characteristics, but how they
interact and relate to other particles and forces of Nature, the field of physics
called particle physics.
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The study of particles is also a story of advanced technology begins with the
search for the primary constituent. More than 200 subatomic particles have been
discovered so far, all detected in sophisticated particle accelerators. However,
most are not fundamental, most are composed of other, simpler particles. For
example, Rutherford showed that the atom was composed of a nucleus and
orbiting electrons. Later physicists showed that the nucleus was composed of
neutrons and protons. More recent work has shown that protons and neutrons
are composed of quarks.

Quarks and Leptons

The two most fundamental types of particles are quarks and leptons. The quarks
and leptons are divided into 6 flavours corresponding to three generations of
matter. Quarks (and antiquarks) have electric charges in units of 1/3 or 2/3's.
Leptons have charges in units of 1 or 0.
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Normal, everyday matter is of the first generation, so we can concentrate our

investigation to up and down quarks, the electron neutrino (often just called the
neutrino) and electrons.

Note that for every quark or lepton there is a corresponding antiparticle. For
example, there is an up antiquark, an anti-electron (called a positron) and an
anti-neutrino. Bosons do not have antiparticles since they are force carriers (see
fundamental forces).
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Fundamental Forces

Matter is effected by forces or interactions (the terms are interchangeable). There

are four fundamental forces in the Universe:

1. gravitation (between particles with mass)

2. electromagnetic (between particles with charge/magnetism)
3. strong nuclear force (between quarks)
4. weak nuclear force (operates between neutrinos and electrons)

The first two you are familiar with, gravity is the attractive force between all
matter, electromagnetic force describes the interaction of charged particles and
magnetics. Light (photons) is explained by the interaction of electric and
magnetic fields.

The strong force binds quarks into protons, neutrons and mesons, and holds the
nucleus of the atom together despite the repulsive electromagnetic force between
protons. The weak force controls the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei and the
reactions between leptons (electrons and neutrinos).

Current physics (called quantum field theory) explains the exchange of energy in
interactions by the use of force carriers, called bosons. The long range forces have
zero mass force carriers, the graviton and the photon. These operate on scales
larger than the solar system. Short range forces have very massive force carriers,
the W+, W- and Z for the weak force, the gluon for the strong force. These operate
on scales the size of atomic nuclei.
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So, although the strong force has the greatest strength, it also has the shortest
range.

Baryons and Mesons

Quarks combine to form the basic building blocks of matter, baryons and mesons.
Baryons are made of three quarks to form the protons and neutrons of atomic
nuclei (and also anti-protons and anti-neutrons). Mesons, made of quark pairs,
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are usually found in cosmic rays. Notice that the quarks all combine to make
charges of -1, 0, or +1.

Thus, our current understanding of the structure of the atom is shown below, the
atom contains a nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.
The nucleus is composed of neutral neutrons and positively charged protons.
The opposite charge of the electron and proton binds the atom together with
electromagnetic forces.
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The protons and neutrons are composed of up and down quarks whose
fractional charges (2/3 and -1/3) combine to produce the 0 or +1 charges of the
proton and neutron. The nucleus is bound together by the nuclear strong force
(that overcomes the electromagnetic repulsion of like-charged protons)

Color Charge

Quarks in baryons and mesons are bound together by the strong force in the form
of the exchange of gluons. Much like how the electromagnetic force strength is
determined by the amount of electric charge, the strong force strength is
determined by a new quantity called color charge.

Quarks come in three colors, red, blue and green (they are not actually colored,
we just describe their color charge in these terms). So, unlike electromagnetic
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charges which come in two flavours (positive and negative or north and south
poles), color charge in quarks comes in three types. And, just to be more
confusing, color charge also has its anti-particle nature. So, there is anti-red, anti-
blue and anti-green.

Gluons serve the function of carrying color when they interact with quarks.
Baryons and mesons must have a mix of colors such that the result is white. For
example, red, blue and green make white. Also, red and anti-red make white.

Quark Confinement

There can exist no free quarks, i.e. quarks by themselves. All quarks must be
bound to another quark or antiquark by the exchange of gluons. This is called
quark confinement. The exchange of gluons produces a color force field, referring
to the assignment of color charge to quarks, similar to electric charge.

The color force field is unusual in that separating the quarks makes the force field
stronger (unlike electromagnetic or gravity forces which weaken with distance).
Energy is needed to overcome the color force field. That energy increases until a
new quark or antiquark is formed (energy equals mass, E=mc2).

Two new quarks form and bind to the old quarks to make two new mesons.
Thus, none of the quarks were at anytime in isolation. Quarks always travel in
pairs or triplets.
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Quantum Electrodynamics

The subfield of physics that explains the interaction of charged particles and light
is called quantum electrodynamics. Quantum electrodynamics (QED) extends
quantum theory to fields of force, starting with electromagnetic fields.

Under QED, charged particles interact by the exchange of virtual photons,

photons that do not exist outside of the interaction and only serve as carriers of
momentum/force.

Notice the elimination of action at a distance, the interaction is due to direct

contact of the photons.

In the 1960's, a formulation of QED led to the unification of the theories of weak
and electromagnetic interactions. This new force, called electroweak, occurs at
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extremely high temperatures such as those found in the early Universe and
reproduced in particle accelerators. Unification means that the weak and
electromagnetic forces become symmetric at this point, they behave as if they
were one force. (During the quark epoch, the electroweak force split into the
electromagnetic and weak force. Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven
Weinberg were awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions
to the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interaction between
elementary particles). And the quark epoch began approximately 10^ -12 seconds
after the Big Bang.

Electroweak unification gave rise to the belief that the weak, electromagnetic and
strong forces can be unified into what is called the Standard Model of matter. In
the Standard Model, gauge bosons are defined as force carriers that mediate the
strong, weak, and electromagnetic fundamental interactions. Interactions in
physics are the ways that particles influence other particles. ... The gauge bosons
of the Standard Model all have spin (as do matter particles).
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Quantum Chromodynamics

Quantum Chromodynamics is the subfield of physics that describes the strong or

“color” force that binds quarks together to form baryons and mesons, and results
in the complicated the force that binds atomic nuclei together.
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The strong force overcomes the electromagnetic or gravitational forces only on

very short range. Outside the nucleus the effect of the strong force is non-existent.

As we can see here the gluon always carries one colour and one anti-colour. So,
when a quark emits a gluon, the quarks changes it owns colour. For example
could a blue quark emit a blue and anti-green gluon and become green.
Furthermore, a red quark could absorb an anti-red and green gluon and become
green.
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Figure 1.4: Two interactions in which the quarks change their colour.

Another consequence of the fact that the gluons carry colour charge is that they
can interact with each other, in so called gluon self-coupling. This gives rise to
two of the quarks characteristic behaviour, asymptotic freedom and
confinement. Thus the quarks in a hadron are basically free as long as the
distance between them is short enough (the radii of the particle). But when the
distance gets large the quarks seems to be bound to each other (or confined to
the particle).
The last thing we will cover here is sea quarks. These are quarks that can be
created from a gluon, within the time-energy relation given by Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Relation. Due to conservation laws it is always a quark and its anti-
quark that is produced. In most case it is the lightest up or down quark-pair that
is produced. With this in mind we cannot always think of
baryons as a particle consisting of 3 quarks. Instead we must see the baryon as a
superposition
of 3 valence quarks (the normal quarks), gluons and quark anti-quark pairs.

Proton-Proton Collisions
Introduction
In many aspects the collision between two protons is more complicated than
between an electron and a positron. To think of the electron and positron as
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point particles without any internal structure is for example possible (and by
today’s knowledge correct), but this is not true for the protons. For the protons it
is necessary to incorporate the quarks and gluons in the theory that describes the
collisions. So instead of a two particle problem we now have a problem with
two systems, each system with three valence quarks, sea quarks and gluons that
interact in a complicated way. So, before we try to understand the proton-proton
collision we will try to understand how we can look into one single proton.

Scattering of Hadrons
To investigate how the internal structure of a very small object looks like, we
can send particles against it and see how the particles scatter. This is the same
idea that Rutherford had in 1911 when he in an experiment accelerated alfa-
particles against a gold foil. Since the alfa particles scattered in a random angle
(but mainly 0 from the beam direction) he could conclude that the atom is
mostly empty space, but that there also should be a heavy nucleus surrounded
by electrons. If we like to do the same experiment for a proton we have to
increase the beam energy. This is because the resolution λ is given by the
relation
λ =hp
where p is the momentum. In experiments like this the most common particles
to produce beams of is some kind of leptons. This is because they are most
likely to interact electromagnetically with the proton and because they are point-
like. Both of these properties make the calculations easier. There are two types
of scattering processes; the elastic and the inelastic scattering. The elastic
scattering was e.g. used to measure the mean radius of a proton. In this case the
experiment is very similar to the Rutherford experiment and the leptons bends
in different angles due to the protons charge distribution. But if we want to
investigate the inner structure of the proton, then inelastic scattering is the
method to use.
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As said before the scattered particle is usually a lepton, so let us here assume
that we are dealing with an electron. In the initial state the electron have energy
E and momentum p while the hadron it is scattered against (let us say a proton)
have energy Ep and momentum pp. If the electron is accelerated against the
proton it will at some point interact with it. Almost all of the interactions will be
electromagnetic and mediated by a photon with momentum q. In order to
resolve the quark structure inside the proton q must be large. Thus, in the final
state, the electron will have a lower energy E and a lower momentum p. In
almost all of the processes the photon is absorbed by a quark that gains high
enough energy to escape from the proton.

AA-Collisions
Introduction
In the previous chapter we talked about proton-proton-collisions. A naive and
straight forward assumption would be that the nucleus-nucleus-collision (AA-
collision) would be a superposition of these. But this is not the case. In the AA-
collision new phenomena called collective effects are observed. These collective
effects can be found by comparing the pp collisions with the AA-collisions. The
differences should then be due to the fact that there are more nucleons involved
in the reaction. This is the reason why it is very important to understand how the
pp-collisions work. Basically, the same quantities that are used in pp collisions
are used in AA-collisions. However, the number of particles produced in the
AA collisions is many orders larger and the data is thus harder to analyse.

From PP to AA- Collisions

In the step between electron and positron collisions we go from points to
something with at least some kind of extension. The way a collision can behave
then goes from the two options hit or miss, to more complicated situations such
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as some kind of overlap region. In the further step, to nuclei collisions, it

becomes even more complicated. Therefore a parameter which
describes the reaction was developed, the impact parameter denoted b (figure
3.1).

Figure 3.1
In the upper figure the impact parameter is shown as the distance between the
centres of the colliding nuclei. The lower figure shows how the spectator
nucleons just continuous on their path, while the participating nucleons form a
highly energetic soup. If the two nuclei hit each other as central as possibly the
value of be is 0. And if the barley hit each other the value is slightly less than
RA+RB, where RA and RB are the radii of the two nuclei. It is very unusual
that a collision occurs in a way so that all the nucleons participate, but this is
not only dependent on b. Another thing affecting the number of participating
nucleons is the size on the ions. Think e.g. on a collision between a proton and a
led nuclei. In this example a lot of the led nucleons would of course never
participate in the collision, even if the value of b was 0. The nucleons that
participate in the collisions are called participants, while the other nucleons are
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called spectators. An interesting thing about the spectators is that they do not
notice when the collision occurs. So while the participants form a highly
energetic nuclei soup, the spectators just continue on their path. In many cases
the spectators form unstable nuclei which rapidly decay. The interesting physics
(for this specific topic) is the physics in the participating region, the region
made up by the participants. So from now on we will just discuss this region.
One key feature to understand how the AA-collisions work, from the view of
PP-collisions, is to understand how the nucleons interact. The actual collision
process is hard to simulate, so instead approximation methods are used. One
such method is the binary collision method.
In this method a collision between e.g. a proton and a nucleus is divided into
several collisions. In each of these collisions the proton collides with each of the
relevant nucleons in the nuclei. It is simply the nucleons which lie
approximately in the beam direction of the proton and may interact with it.
At every such interaction, a new path for the proton is calculated, to at last get
an approximation for the whole collision. In reality the proton may bend of a bit
after the interactions, but to understand the principles it is enough to think of a
straight line. So if the proton is about to collide with a nucleus with 4 relevant
nucleons, there will be 4 binary collisions. If instead the proton is another nuclei
with four relevant nucleons there will be up to 16 binary collisions (if all the
nucleons collide with each other).
In more advanced approximations it is possible to incorporate the other
nucleons in phenomena such as re-scattering. With the number of binary
collisions defined, it is possible to define the nuclear modification
factor . This quantity measures the deviation in yield between an AB-collision
relative a scaled proton-proton yield. It is defined via: Here NAB is the yield in
a collision between nuclei A and B, NPP the yield in a proton-proton collision
and <Nbin> the mean of binary collisions in the A-B-collisions. To investigate
the behaviour of the collisions, it is often customary to choose nuclei A and B to
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be different spices. It is e.g. of great importance to investigate the modification

factor when either A or B is a very light nuclei or even a proton. From
experiments such as these, it is possible to find phenomena that occur
independently of the collided nuclei. One such example is shadowing which is a
phenomenon where the structure functions for the nucleons are deformed. This
causes the particle productions in the collisions to change. Another phenomenon
affecting the particle yield is gluon saturation. This phenomenon is caused
when the gluons in the hadron form a new state, the so called color glass
condensate (CGC).

QGP (Quark-Gluon-Plasma)
Introduction
Early in our physics education we learn about different states of aggregation.
The first three we learn about is the solid, the fluid and the gas states, the three
everyday encountered states. If we go to energies higher than in these states we
eventually learn about a state we call plasma. In principle this state is not
anything strange or exotic, which maybe the name may imply, but is rather the
most common form of matter in the universe. In this state the particles have
energy high enough to break the Coulomb force between them. This result in a
matter where the charged particles can move around freely and are not
combined to molecules or atoms. Examples of where this kind of matter can be
found are in stars and fires. The criteria to create plasma are either a very high
temperature or a very high density. If the temperature or density is passed far
beyond this limit we expect at some point to find a new phase transition into an
even more energetic state, the so called Quark-Gluon-Plasma. This state of
matter can be created through collisions between nuclei at extremely high
velocities.
The States of Strongly Interacting Matter
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As stated in the introduction there must be some kind of phase transition for
nuclear matter to become a QGP. This transition is dependent on both the
temperature and the density (and some other parameters as well) of the matter.
Usually some other quantities like chemical potentials for baryons (μb) or
something similar is used instead of density, but serves the same
purpose. If fact μb is a quantity describing how many baryons there are in
relation to antibaryons. In figure 4.1 a phase diagram for nuclear matter is
shown where the parameters are
temperature and the chemical potential. From this we can get some insight in
how we can
change the parameters to create different states of the strongly interacting matter

Fig 4.1
If we begin in the lower left corner of the diagram we have very small values on
both the parameters. This region is often referred to as the QCD- vacuum. It is
in this low energy region it is adequate to use QCD instead of perturbation-
QCD . Thus this is the region which was described in chapter 1. If we move a
bit to the left of this point, or in other words increase the chemical potential, we
find “normal” nuclear matter. If the temperature is left unchanged and the
chemical potential is increased by somewhere between 2-10 times compared to
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nuclei, we enter the region of neutron stars. In certain parts of this region it is
possible for QGP to exist. This QGP region also extends in a curve from the
neutron stars on the chemical potential axis to higher temperatures on the
temperature axis. The matter in the core (the area bounded by the axes and the
curve) is in a state which is called hadron gas. Outside this curve we have the
state that traditionally is called QGP. If we try to reach this state by just
changing the temperature we have to go through the cross over zone. In this
zone the matter is believed to change from the hadron gas to the QGP in a rapid
by continuously way and not in a classical phase transition. The temperature
needed to achieve the QGP is calculated by lattice QCD to be around 170 MeV
at small values of μb.
In the limit where we let the temperature go to values far above 170 MeV, while
keeping the chemical potential fixed at low values, we at one point will end up
in a state very much like the early universe. In the first fractions of seconds after
Big-Bang the universe expanded incredibly rapid, this made it cooler. So at one
point in time, the universe went through the transition from QGP down to the
hadron gas, and the matter we know today. In the experiments where the goal is
to recreate the QGP, the current way to do so is through a combination of high
temperature and high chemical potential. Even if the attempt to create it is
successful, the time it will be present is very short. So all that is reasonable to
hope for, is a quick visit in the QGP region before the matter cools off and
become normal matter again.

Possible Evidence of the QGP

The conditions to create a QGP are very hard to fulfil. The high energy and
density needed will e.g. only be present a short period of time after the
collisions. After this the QGP will return to a hadron gas. Therefore it is of great
importance to know what kind of signals we are looking for as evidence for the
QGP. There are several ideas of what could be interpreted as evidence. The ones
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discussed here are:

Strangeness and charm Enhancement
J/Ψ-suppression
Jet-quenching and high Pt-suppression
All of these three phenomena have in one or another way been observed, which
indicates that
QGP actually have been created in collisions. But for some of them it has
recently been questioned whether they really have been observed or if the data
have been interpreted in an incorrect way.
Before we try to understand the signals from a QGP we should try to understand
which properties we expect it to have. To do so it is appropriate to think of two
nuclei collide at ultra-relativistic speed. Let us assume that the collision occurs
with a small impact parameter, b, so that a relatively large region of
participating nucleons is created. The high kinetic energy in this region then
squeeze the nucleons together in such a way that they overlap. Due to this the
quarks no longer know to which nucleon they belong and start to move freely
inside the overlap region (known as the QGP), see figure 4.2. So, some
important properties that can be expected from this are:

The QGP is a system made up of quarks and gluons rather than several
independent nucleons.
The free protons in the QGP create a coloured field. It might also be of interest
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to point out that the theorists thought of the QGP as a weakly interacting gas
before any experimental data pointed in another direction. However this
changed after some results, that we will come to in a later chapter, and QGP is
today commonly accepted to be more of a fluid with low viscosity. But with
higher energies it is possible to explore new phenomena. It might be that there is
a limit where the QGP turns into a gas.
Strangeness and Charm Enhancement
In the high energetic QGP all the quarks are combined to one system. A
consequence of this is that they have to obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle. To
do so the up and down quarks (the most common quarks in the hadrons) have to
occupy quantum states with very high energies. At some point this energy is so
high that it is energetically preferable to create heaver quarks instead of exciting
the lighter. The second-generation quarks are the lightest after the up and down
quarks. So, these are the ones one expects to be produced in a collision where a
QGP is created. Since the s-quark only have a mass, roughly 1/10:th of the c-
quarks mass, it is also natural to expect the major part of the created quarks to
be s-quarks.
However, the signal physicists are looking for when it comes to s/c
enhancement is an increased amount of strange or charmed hadrons. If one
calculated the number of e.g. hyperons (particles with s-quarks) per non-
hyperons as a function of energy density one would at one point see a rise in the
curve. This is the critical energy density (εc), which is the energy density to
have the phase transition to QGP.
J/Ψ-suppression
In the previous section we concluded that it seems reasonable to think that more
c-quarks (or rather charmed particles) will be detected if a QGP is present. A
special meson made up by the c and -quark is the charmonium. Its ground state
it is denoted by J/Ψ and its first excited state by Ψ’. At first one may think that
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we will detect more of these charmonium states, since there will be more c-
quarks produced. But infact it is the opposite we expect to see, and this is called
J -suppression or more general charmonium-suppression. The reason for this is
that the produced c -quarks in a normal matter would be more likely to combine
with each other. This since there is no or at least few other free quarks to
combine with. But in a QGP there are lots of other free quarks to combine with
instead. So, when the energy density rise the amount of charmonia detected is
expected go down. The dissociation energy for the Ψ is around 2.1Tc, where Tc
is the critical temperature for a QGP. The same dissociation energy for the
exited state is expected to be much lower, at 1.1-1.2Tc. These calculations are
done with lattice QCD.
The same suppression process is also expected to another quarkonia, coupled
quark-antiquark pair, namely the b denoted ϒ. This particle is of course much
heavier than any of the above charmonium states, but the principle of
suppression should be the same anyhow.

Jet-quenching and High Pt-suppression

In the collisions between two nuclei there is a certain probability for jet events.
Jets are due to hadronization of coloured particles. The idea here is that these
coloured quarks have to travel through the coloured QGP before we can detect
the particles they fragment into. So, on its way the particles will interact
strongly with several other coloured partons and loose energy. This is called
gluon-bremsstrahlung since the interaction is mediated by the emitted gluons
from the particle. This is a similar phenomenon to the bremsstrahlung, which is
when a charged particle emits photons when it travels in an inhomogeneous
electric field. Let us e.g. consider a two jet event. Since the origins of the jets
are more or less arbitrary one specific origin could be near the edge of the QGP.
Then one of the two particles that will fragment must travel a much longer way
through the QGP. Thus it would lose energy and the hadrons produced in this
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jet would have a lower energy in comparison to the other jet. This is to say that
the jet has been quenched.
In an experiment the result would be one strong jet and a much weaker jet in the
opposite direction to the first one. Off course is it probably so that the weaker
jet will contain more particles. But since these particles have lower energies, the
software used is built in such a way that it will not count the particles if they do
not have certain threshold energy. A schematic result of an experiment where
jet-quenching has occurred. A phenomena closely related to the jet-quenching is
high hadron pt-suppression. This suggests that if a QGP is produced in a
collision, then fewer hadrons with high pt should be observed. This is due to the
fact that eventual jets will be quenched. Jet-quenching can only be observe if
the jets are produced near the edge of the QGP. But to observe high pt
suppression, this geometry is not needed.

QGP not created by Human

There are at least two different places in universe, where we expect the QGP
have been created. The first one is early after Big-bang, the birth of universe,
and the second in neutron stars. These are two places in universe with either a
temperature or density high enough to create this state of matter.
All the energy and material we know of today have one time, about10^10 years
ago, been focused in just one single point. This was in the earliest moment of
the creation of the universe. Just a few fractions of seconds later, the energy in
that point had expanded to a several kilometres wide fire ball. In this instant the
temperature was billions of degrees high. So, the extreme energies needed to
create a QGP were without any doubt achieved here. So, to understand why the
universe developed the way it did a key point is to understand how the QGP
works. This is an interesting idea that connects high energy physics and
astronomy, connection between the smallest and largest scale in physics.
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Also the neutron stars are subjects treated in astronomy. Even though the energy
and density here is on a completely different scale they are still enormous.
Hence it is a simplification to talk about these masses in terms of solar masses,
Mʘ, which is about 2·1030 kg. The limit where a star becomes a neutron star is
approximately just above 1.4Mʘ. If a mass like this is reached, the pressure in
the star can no longer resist the gravitational force. Thus, the star is compressed
and its density is greatly increased until the star has found a new equilibrium. It
is these stars in this equilibrium that referred to when spoken about neutron
stars.
The diameter of these objects is usually of the range 10km (compare to the Sun
with an over 100 000 longer diameter), so they are actually much smaller than
Earth. The surface of the neutron stars consists mainly of metals creating a
solid. Hence, on this distance from the stars midpoint there actually exist both
electrons and protons to create atoms. In the surface the density is relatively low
(~107 kg/m3), compared to the mantle and core of the star. Only a few km
inside the star, in the mantle, the density rapidly increases several thousand
times. Here almost all the matter is neutrons, which is in a superfluid state. Even
deeper in the star, in the core, the density reaches a value of 1018 kg/m3 an
higher. It is here, in the core, we expect the QGP exist.
So just like the researches, that try to understand the early Universe, the studies
of neutron stars can complement the high energy experiments. The rotation of
the stars in combination with their strongly magnetic fields makes it possible to
observe data from them. These data could perhaps be used to explore the inner
structure of the stars, the QGP.