What is the Standard Model of particle physics theory?
The Standard Model of Particle Physics is scientists’ current best theory to describe the most basic building blocks of the universe. It explains how particles called quarks (which make up protons and neutrons) and leptons (which include electrons) make up all known matter.
What are the 12 types of quarks in the Standard Model of particle physics?
The Twelve Fundamental Particles
| Quarks | Leptons | |
|---|---|---|
| up | (u) | electron |
| down | (d) | electron-neutrino |
| strange | (s) | muon |
| charm | (c) | muon-neutrino |
What lies beyond the standard model?
Theories that lie beyond the Standard Model include various extensions of the standard model through supersymmetry, such as the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), and entirely novel explanations, such as string theory, M-theory, and extra dimensions.
Is particle physics and quantum physics the same?
Quantum physics and particle physics are two major branches of physics. The key difference between quantum physics and particle physics is that quantum physics deals with the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms, whereas particle physics deals with particles that constitute matter and radiation.
Why is the Standard Model important?
The standard model has proved a highly successful framework for predicting the interactions of quarks and leptons with great accuracy. Yet it has a number of weaknesses that lead physicists to search for a more complete theory of subatomic particles and their interactions.
What can the Standard Model explain?
The Standard Model explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact, governed by four fundamental forces.
How does the Higgs boson fit into the Standard Model?
The Higgs boson plays a unique role in the Standard Model, by explaining why the other elementary particles, except the photon and gluon, are massive. In particular, the Higgs boson explains why the photon has no mass, while the W and Z bosons are very heavy.
What are the problems with the Standard Model?
One major problem of the Standard Model is that it does not include gravity, one of the four fundamental forces. The model also fails to explain why gravity is so much weaker than the electromagnetic or nuclear forces.
What does the Standard Model include?
The Standard Model includes 12 elementary particles of spin 1⁄2, known as fermions. According to the spin–statistics theorem, fermions respect the Pauli exclusion principle. Each fermion has a corresponding antiparticle.
Why is the Higgs mechanism important to the Standard Model?
The Standard Model (SM) explains the existence of massive particles by the Higgs mechanism, in which a spontaneously broken symmetry associated with a scalar field (the Higgs field) results in the appearance of mass.