Talk:List of particles

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Contents 1 electron, muon and tau neutrinos 2 feature graphic on page 3 Pomeron 4 the "big bang" days of this article 5 list? where's the list? 6 completeness? ask Gödel about such things... 7 gravitino 8 article name 9 Order of topics 10 Axion 11 Skyrmion 12 Expansion request 13 Tau leptons 14 Nutrions? 15 separate theoretical particles 16 Anyons 17 Geantino 18 Tables of leptons and quarks

[edit] electron, muon and tau neutrinos

The page gives mass limits on these particles, but they are not mass eigenstates. The mass eigenstates are the \nu_1, \nu_2, and \nu_3 and are mixtures of the \nu_e, \nu_\mu, and \nu_\tau.

[edit] feature graphic on page

umm, if the positron is "going from top to bottom" it hardly looks as if it is curving to the right? The only thing I can think of is that it's viewed from below.

[edit] Pomeron

What about Pomeron?

[edit] the "big bang" days of this article

I have marked the article as a stub because IMHO it's far from complete. Here are some of the things that are missing.

• The title, list of particles, suggests a linear structure, but in fact the article is structured more like a tree. Should we change the title?
• A tree structure is best presented graphically. What is the best way to do this? Wikipedia contains no examples, as far as I can tell.
• Should the article strive for completeness, and include every term that can possibly refer to a particle? Or should it try for maximum clarity of the taxonomy, and include only terms that fit in well?
• What to do with problematic particles such as:
  • hypothetical particles like axion, leptoquark, monopole, tachyon, supersymmetric partners;
  • pseudoparticles like exciton, phonon, and pomeron;
  • ill-defined particles like preon and WIMP;
  • composites like quark-gluon plasma and strangelets.

Comments are welcome. —Herbee 2004-02-20

I would say that quark-gluon plasma and strangelets are states of matter, not particles. Ditto neutronium. Jeremy Henty 19:15, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] list? where's the list?

• The title, list of particles, suggests a linear structure, but in fact the article is structured more like a tree. Should we change the title?

No. This is counter-intuitive. No one would ever type "tree of particles" into the search box. Anyone who did stumble across this article would wonder what the title meant.

I agree that "tree of particles" sounds silly. That's why I didn't suggest it. I'm looking for an even better title. On the other hand, we might get used to "tree of..." articles. Wikipedia is already growing a tree of life.—Herbee

[edit] completeness? ask Gödel about such things...

• I think this page should list the major particles/groupings. If it has name recognition, it definetely belongs here. I wouldn't even mind completeness, depending on how long it made the page. →Raul654 00:12, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

I see a need for an article whose mission is akin to that of Scientific classification, but for particle physics instead of Biology. So "Scientific classification (particle physics)" would make sense to me as an alternative title for this article, or perhaps another article that just extracts out the classification without respect to particular particles. Bevo 19:56, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] gravitino

Is the gravitino really a hypothetical fermion? If so, strong or not-strong? - Bevo 23:04, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The gravitino has spin 3/2 so it is most definitely a fermion. There is as yet no direct evidence for supersymmetry, let alone supergravity, so I think it is quite fair to call it hypothetical. I don't understand what is meant by "strong or not-strong". Jeremy Henty 21:58, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The article says that fermions are classified according to whether they feel the strong nuclear force or not. Is this true, and if so, which classification would apply to the gravitino? - Bevo 23:06, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The gravitino woudn't couple with the gluons (if that's what you mean), only with supersymmetrical bosons. Which bosons would it couple to depends on the supersymmetrical model.

[edit] article name

I suggest we rename this article to 'List of physical particles', to make it clear that we're talking about physics and not grammar. -- Heron 11:21, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Uh, no - I think this list is fairly obvious as it is. →Raul654 13:19, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

List of particles (Particle physics) would be the alternative if we need a name for disambiguation reasons (which I'm not sure we need yet). - Bevo 02:23, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Order of topics

Does anyone have an objection to putting the elementary particles before the composite? It makes it easier to discuss the composition of composite particles if the component (elementary) particles have been described earlier in the article. Ian Cairns 17:00, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I, too, think that would be a better order. - [[User:Bevo|Bevo]] 17:08, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Axion

What about the axion (and the CAST experiment looking for it)? linas 00:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Never mind, I added this an some others. linas 01:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm.. edit conflicts ... axion is not a supersymmetric particle, nor is it predicted by "new theories", so it does not belong in that list. Its one of the "olde-fashion" particles. I'm not sure where to put it. linas 01:10, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

That section should be for any hypothetical elementary particle. I will modify so axion fits. -- SCZenz 01:11, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Skyrmion

And the Skyrmion is a totally different kind of beast, but it is a "particle" in the traditional sense of the word.

Also, a section on particles in condensed matter physics would be handy: phonon, exciton, hole, polaron, magnon etc. etc

Never mind, I added this an some others. linas 01:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, how about excitations of the Ising model, the XY model, Potts model? Maybe these don't count. linas 01:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion request

It would be nice to have a timeline of discovery of these particles. -- Beland 06:02, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I will look into doing this in the near future, as a separate page, Timeline of particle discoveries -- SCZenz 20:57, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I have done so. -- SCZenz 00:39, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tau leptons

Perhaps there ought to be some discussion about "tauons". Everybody I know calls them "taus" or "tau leptons", and there are only a handful of papers in the arxiv that use the term "tauons". One might argue the term should agree with "muon", "pion", "kaon"; but why not agree with "D meson", "B meson" or "J/psi"? Is there an argument for not just calling them "taus"? -- Xerxes 14:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

They are called taus! The problem is that tau is the article on the Greek letter. I favor either [[Tau lepton]] or [[Tauon|Tau]] as the proper way to refer to them. -- SCZenz 14:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nutrions?

Ummm... isnt this page missing Nutrinos?

Adjam 01:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Nah, we've got neutrons, and neutrinos too. The former is under baryons, and the latter is under standard model fermions. -- SCZenz 03:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] separate theoretical particles

It would be easier on the eyes if the theoretical particles were listed underneath a diffrent part of the article. And also, the particles could have been categorized by which theory they are predicted to be in.69.22.224.249 00:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hadrons

Hadrons are defined as strongly interacting composite particles. Hadrons are either:

   * Fermions, in which case they are called baryons.
   * Bosons, in which case they are called mesons.

I think this explanation is a little misleading, as most definitions are of the form "(hyponym): a type of (hyponym)". I'd suggest something more along the lines of:

Hadrons

Hadrons are defined as strongly interacting composite particles and can be either a fermion or meson. Depending on their consituent particles, hadrons can be classified as either:

   * Baryons, if they have spin = 1/2 (ie. a fermion); or
   * Mesons, if they have spin = 1, (ie. a meson).

Just a quick thought.

[edit] Anyons

I couldn't find Anyons. Could somebody with consolidated knowledge write a bit? Felixbecker2 19:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Geantino

How about Geantino? It's a purely fictional particle used in HEP software, but... --Yuriy Lapitskiy 18:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to think it needs an entry here; this is about particles in physics, not abstractions used in physics software. In fact, I wonder if the Geantino article itself shouldn't be merged with Geant4...? -- SCZenz 18:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tables of leptons and quarks

The tables of leptons and quarks were moved to the lepton and quark pages. I would like to have them on this page also. Any objections? --Donar Reiskoffer 15:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I moved them because duplicated information is notoriously difficult to keep up-to-date. I noticed in this case that the Lepton information in two articles was different and had to find out which was more up-to-date. Of course, you are free to edit pages as you wish but I cannot see why detailed information needs to be included in a general page. Bazza 12:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)