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The lightest group of mesons is less massive than the lightest group of baryons, meaning that they are more easily produced in experiments, and thus exhibit certain higher-energy phenomena more readily than do baryons. But mesons can be quite massive: for example, the J/Psi meson (J/ψ
Baryons and mesons are both hadrons, which are particles composed solely of quarks or both quarks and antiquarks. The term baryon is derived from the Greek "βαρύς" ( barys ), meaning "heavy", because, at the time of their naming, it was believed that baryons were characterized by having greater masses than other particles that were classed ...
Mesons named with the letter "f" are scalar mesons (as opposed to a pseudo-scalar meson), and mesons named with the letter "a" are axial-vector mesons (as opposed to an ordinary vector meson) a.k.a. an isoscalar vector meson, while the letters "b" and "h" refer to axial-vector mesons with positive parity, negative C-parity, and quantum numbers I G of 1 + and 0 − respectively.
In particle physics, a baryon is a type of composite subatomic particle that contains an odd number of valence quarks, conventionally three. [1] Protons and neutrons are examples of baryons; because baryons are composed of quarks, they belong to the hadron family of particles. Baryons are also classified as fermions because they have half ...
Baryons (three quarks) have a baryon number of +1, mesons (one quark, one antiquark) have a baryon number of 0, and antibaryons (three antiquarks) have a baryon number of −1. Exotic hadrons like pentaquarks (four quarks, one antiquark) and tetraquarks (two quarks, two antiquarks) are also classified as baryons and mesons depending on their ...
Ordinary mesons are made up of a valence quark and a valence antiquark. Because mesons have integer spin (0 or 1) and are not themselves elementary particles, they are classified as "composite" bosons, although being made of elementary fermions. Examples of mesons include the pion, kaon, and the J/ψ.
These include glueballs and hybrid mesons (mesons bound by excited gluons). Because mesons have an even number of quarks, they are also all bosons, with integer spin, i.e., 0, +1, or −1. They have baryon number B = 1 / 3 − 1 / 3 = 0 . Examples of mesons commonly produced in particle physics experiments include pions and kaons.
When originally defined in the 1950s, the terms baryons, mesons and leptons referred to masses; however, after the quark model became accepted in the 1970s, it was recognised that baryons are composites of three quarks, mesons are composites of one quark and one antiquark, while leptons are elementary and are defined as the elementary fermions ...