Particles and Quantum

• Leptons are fundamental particles and include the electron, muon (a heavy electron), and neutrino (no charge)
• Leptons have an electron number of one, while their antiparticle equivalents have an electron number of minus one
• Neutrinos can be specifically electron neutrinos or muon neutrinos
• Hadrons are split into Barons (made of three quarks) and mesons (made of two quarks, a quark-antiquark pair)
• The three flavors of quark are up, down, and strange
• Up quarks have a charge of plus 2/3, down and strange quarks have a charge of minus 1/3
• Strange quarks have strangeness minus one, antistrange quarks have strangeness plus one
• Barons have a baron number of plus a third, which can be one or minus one if antiquarks are present
• Neutrons are up-down-down, protons are up-up-down
• Mesons that don't have strangeness are pions, while mesons with strangeness are kaons
• The electromagnetic force can affect any charged particle, with the exchange particle being the photon
• The weak force can affect any particle, with the exchange particles being the W+, W-, or Z0 boson
• The strong nuclear force only affects hadrons, with the exchange particle being the pion or gluon
• The strong force holds nuclei together
• In any interaction, charge, baryon number, and lepton numbers must be conserved
• Radiation includes particles or waves emitted by something
• Gamma radiation is emitted by the nucleus of an atom and can ionize atoms
• Alpha radiation involves the emission of an alpha particle (two protons and two neutrons) during decay
• Beta decay involves a neutron turning into a proton and an electron, with the emission of a beta particle (fast-moving electron)
• Pair production occurs when a photon converts into two particles if it has enough energy
• Particles have wave-particle duality, demonstrated by electron diffraction
• The wavelength of a particle is given by the de Broglie wavelength equation: Lambda = h / p
• Intensity varies with distance from the center in diffraction patterns
• Kinetic energy can be converted into momentum using the equation: KE = 0.5 * p^2