The Particle Table

(revised Aug., 2013)
JOHN A. GOWAN
email:
jag8@cornell.edu
johngowan@earthlink.net

The Particle Spectrum, Including the Weak Force "Intermediate Vector Bosons" ("IVBs")
Quarks	Designations:	.	Higgs, IVBs, Leptons	Designations:
.	.	H1, H2, H3 ("Higgs")	"Higgs" Bosons (3?)
.	.	W, X, Y, (IVBs)	IVBs (3 families?)
Lq (?)	Leptoquark	Lq, vlq (?)	Leptoquark, lq Neutrino
t, b	Top, Bottom	t-, vt	Tau, Tau Neutrino
c, s	Charm, Strange	u-, vu	Muon, Muon Neutrino
u, d	Up, Down	e-, ve	Electron, Electron Neutrino
Composite Particles	Baryons, Mesons	Elementary Particles	Electrons, Neutrinos
Primary Mass Carrier	Nucleons, Nuclei	Alternative Charge Carriers	Leptons, Mesons

The W+, W-, and W (neutral) (or Z neutral) are the "Intermediate Vector Bosons" (IVBs - "field vectors" or force-carriers) of the weak force (at the "electroweak" (EW) force unification energy level). The "W" IVBs mediate the creation and destruction of unpaired or "singlet" (lacking antimatter partners) leptons, neutrinos, and quarks, and transformations of identity between and among these elementary particles. The "W" neutral (Z) typically mediates neutral weak force scattering ("bouncing" via a weak interaction) of neutrinos, or interactions in which neutrinos simply swap identities with other leptons. The "W" IVBs are heavy particles; the "W" is equal to approximately 80.4 GeV, the Z is equal to approximately 91.2 GeV (Fermilab data). The hypothetical "X" IVB (at the strong and electroweak force unification energy level ("Grand Unified Theory" or GUT), is an even heavier particle which compresses the quarks of baryons until their color charges self-annihilate ("asymptotic freedom"), producing leptoquark neutrinos and baryons during the Big Bang, and causing "proton decay". A third family of even heavier "Y" IVBs may exist, producing electrically neutral leptoquarks at the highest energy level, at which gravity joins the other forces during the first instant of the "Big Bang" (the "Theory of Everything" or TOE energy level) . The "Higgs" boson, the presumed scalar of particle mass, probably belongs here with the other massive bosons, although the Higgs is not itself an IVB (the Higgs is a scalar boson with spin = 0 whereas the IVBs are vector bosons with spin = 1). If three families of weak force IVBs exist, then we also expect to find three energy levels of Higgs bosons, one each for the "W", "X", and "Y" IVB families. (Not shown in this table are the bosons of the electromagnetic force (photon, spin 1), the strong force (gluon, spin 1), and the gravitational force (the hypothetical graviton, spin 2; all are massless and travel at velocity c). (See: "The "Higgs" Boson and the Weak Force IVBs"; see also: "The 'W' IVB and the Weak force Mechanism".)

The elementary leptonic series consists of the electron (e), muon (u), tau (t), and the hypothetical leptoquark (Lq), with their corresponding neutrinos (v). The electron, muon and tau are identical except for their masses (tau is the heaviest) and their identity charges (carried in "hidden" or implicit form by the massive leptons, and carried in explicit or "bare" form by their neutrinos). The (hypothetical) leptoquark is the even heavier ancestor of the quarks and leptons; in the table it is indicated at the head of both the leptonic and quark series, for although a (fractured) lepton when compressed, when expanded it reveals three sub-units, the quarks. (See: "Identity Charge and the Weak Force".)

The quarks are named up, down (u, d), charm, strange (c, s), and top, bottom (t, b). The u, c, t series carries a fractional electric charge of +2/3; the d, s, b series carries a fractional electric charge of -1/3. Quarks also carry the strong force "color" charge, a three-part charge designated (for convenience of reference only) red, green, yellow, and vectored by a field of 8 "gluons". Gluons consist of a color-anticolor charge in any combination (except the doubly neutral "green-antigreen"). Baryons consist of three quarks, mesons consist of a quark-antiquark pair. Hadrons are the class of particles containing quarks - that is, the baryons and mesons. Baryons as a class all carry one and the same "identity" ("baryon number") charge, whose (hypothetical) explicit form is the leptoquark neutrino.

The leptons and the leptoquark are the only known (or surmised) massive elementary particles. The neutrinos are the (nearly?) massless, "bare", or explicit form of the identity charges of their corresponding massive leptons. Quarks, although massive, are sub-elementary, carrying fractional electric, color, and identity charges. The quarks occur (permanently) only in "white" color combinations as triplets (composed of all colors) confined to baryons, or (temporarily) as quark-antiquark pairs (composed of a color and its specific anticolor) in mesons. Primordially, quarks are produced in isolated particles of matter (isolated from antimatter) by the expansion of internally fractured leptoquarks (yielding baryons); or then and now, as particle-antiparticle pairs (either mesons or baryons) in high-energy astrophysical (or accelerator) interactions and collisions.

The production of leptons and quarks as bound forms of electromagnetic energy is apparently a "given" or inherent "anthropic" capability of the energized spacetime metric or Heisenberg-Dirac "vacuum". The metric's capacity to produce specific bound electromagnetic energy forms (leptons and quarks) is simply "packaged" into leptoquark form when all forces combine during the "Big Bang" or "Creation Event" to produce massive particles from high-energy massless light and the structural (conservation) properties of the spacetime metric or "vacuum". Hence particles and the spacetime metric are intimately related: the baryon looks like a miniature universe with internal, massless particles (gluons) exchanging the color charges of the strong force at velocity c; the three-part baryon may be a fractal "resonance" of the three spatial dimensions within a "particle metric", etc.

Ordinary matter (including stars) consists of the electron and u, d quark energy level only. The quark complement of a proton is (uud)+; that of a neutron is (udd). An exactly corresponding set of antiparticles also exists, in which all charges are reversed, but is not shown. (In the case of neutrinos, it is the "handedness" of their quantum mechanical intrinsic spin which is reversed: all neutrinos have left-handed spin; all antineutrinos have right-handed spin. Our universe is fundamentally asymmetric in that it contains only left-handed neutrinos, a one-way time dimension, a one-way gravitational field, and no antimatter.) Neutrinos are associated only with elementary particles, and they uniquely identify the particle of their origin, both as to species (electron, muon, tau, leptoquark) and matter vs antimatter. Hence we recognize neutrinos as "bare" identity charges, which exist as a consequence of Noether's symmetry-conservation theorem and the breaking of the photon's "anonymity" symmetry by "singlet" leptons and leptoquarks: (photons are indistinguishable one from another and hence "anonymous"). (See: "Symmetry Principles of the Unified Field Theory".) There are no neutrinos associated with the sub-elementary quarks. We therefore assume that all baryons carry one and the same "hidden" leptoquark number or "identity" charge, which is balanced by an explicit antileptoquark neutrino. These leptoquark neutrinos are only produced during proton creation or destruction and are obvious "dark matter" candidates, remnants of the primordial and asymmetric "Creation Event".

Field Vectors, Force- Carriers, or Bosons

There are two expressions of the strong force, one at a structural level of force/charge exchange between quarks within single baryons, and a second at a structural level of force/charge exchange between multiple baryons within a compound atomic nucleus. The primary or quark-level expression of the strong force produces "quark confinement", the strong force that permanently confines quarks in baryon triplets. The charge of this strong force is called "color", and the field vectors are called "gluons". All quarks carry one color charge (red, green, or yellow), which they exchange with each other via a gluon force-field. Gluons are composed of color-anticolor charge quanta, are massless, and travel at velocity c. The "round-robin" exchange of virtual gluons between quarks (as per Gell-Mann) constitutes the primary expression of the strong force, the permanent binding of quarks within baryons. Baryons are the primary mass carriers or energy storage units of the cosmos. The composite structure of the baryon is necessary to produce an electrically neutral mass-carrying particle which can break the initial symmetric energy state of the cosmos, probably via the asymmetric weak force decay of electrically neutral leptoquarks. (See: "The Origin of Matter and Information"; see also: "Table of the Higgs Cascade".)

The secondary or "nucleon" energy level expression of the strong force produces the binding of protons and neutrons into the compound atomic nuclei of the heavy elements. The charge associated with this force is called "flavor", and the field vectors or force-carriers are mesons, composed of a colorless quark-antiquark pair. The "ground state" family of quarks (which exclusively comprises protons and neutrons) carry either "up" or "down" flavors, and the exchange of flavors between protons and neutrons via meson force-carriers (as per Yukawa) constitutes the binding principle of the secondary aspect of the strong force, as expressed through the cohesion of compound atomic nuclei. Unlike the absolute confinement of quarks via gluons, however, the confinement of nucleons via mesons, while powerful, is not absolute: under the proper circumstances, protons and neutrons can escape from a compound nucleus, and heavy nuclei can fission into lighter elements. (Meson binding is due to a "least bound energy" principle, whereas gluon binding is due to the stricter charge conservation principle (in this case, conservation of whole quantum units of charge); both are ultimately forms of symmetry conservation.) (See: "The Strong Force: Two Expressions".)

The weak force IVBs are unusual in that they are very massive bosons, whereas all other field vectors are massless. The mass of the IVBs is why they are called "intermediate" vector bosons. The great mass of the IVBs is used to recreate the primordial conditions of the "Big Bang" in which the reactions they now mediate first took place. Such extreme measures are necessary because single elementary particles created today must be the same in all respects as those created eons ago in the "Big Bang". Only the weak force is capable of creating single elementary particles rather than particle-antiparticle pairs. See below and the "Higgs Boson" papers. See also: "The 'W' IVB and the Weak Force Mechanism".)

The photon, a quantum unit of light, is the field vector of electric charge and the electromagnetic force. The exchange of virtual photons between the electric charges (or magnetic fields) of an electron and proton (for example), binds these particles together and maintains the atomic structure of atoms and molecules. Our Universe is an electromagnetic universe, composed of free and bound forms of electromagnetic energy (light and matter). The electromagnetic constant "c" is the primary gauge constant of energy in the Cosmos, determining, regulating, or "gauging" the inertial metric of spacetime, the entropic expansion of space, the "non-local" symmetric energy state of light, the causal relations of matter, the invariance of charge, and the proportional equivalence between free and bound electromagnetic energy (E = mcc) - among other things. (See: "Symmetry Principles of the Unified Field Theory.)

"Gravitons" are the presumed field vectors of the gravitational force. The graviton, as conceived in these pages, consists of a quantum unit of temporal entropy, or negative spatial entropy, or equivalently, a quantum unit of time. Time is the active principle of the gravitational "location" charge. Time is connected to ("entangled" with) space, and the intrinsic, one-way entropic motion of time into history pulls space after it, producing the spatial flow of a gravitational field. A gravitational field is the spatial consequence of the intrinsic motion of time. It is the actual flow of space toward the center of a massive particle's "location" charge that causes the "binding" effect of gravitation. Whereas the electromagnetic constant "c" gauges the metric relation between space, time, and free energy, the gravitational constant "G" gauges the entropic relation between space, time, and bound energy. Gravity creates a combined metric of historical spacetime in which the conservation requirements of both matter and light in terms of raw energy, entropy, symmetry, and causality can all be satisfied. (See: "The Conversion of Space to Time"; see also: "A Description of Gravitation"; see also: "A Rationale for Gravity".)

Examples of Weak Force Decays

This mechanism also raises another possibility: if the "W" has a "big brother" (the "X" IVB), it might be powerful enough to squeeze the quarks of a baryon sufficiently to cause the color charge to vanish ("asymptotic freedom"), and initiate proton decay. The energy barrier to proton decay is very high (at least the equivalent of leptoquark mass), so the "X" IVB would have to be very massive indeed. Presumably there is another, heavier "Higgs" boson regulating the mass of the "X" IVB family. (See: "The Higgs Boson and the Weak Force IVBs".)

The typical role of the weak force today is to produce (elementary) matter "singlets" from virtual particle-antiparticle pairs. The electron produced today must be exactly the same in all respects as the electron produced long ago during the "Big Bang", otherwise charge and symmetry conservation will fail. The only way to ensure the invariance of elementary particle "singlets" whenever and wherever they are produced, is to recreate the original conditions in which they were first formed. Hence the great mass of the IVBs, which seem out of all proportion to the production of a tiny electron, is explained as required to reconstitute the primordial electroweak force unification symmetric energy state of the "Big Bang", in which quark-quark and lepton-lepton transformations occur as the normal course of events. The IVBs provide the transformation mechanism while the Higgs boson scales the quantized and invariant symmetric energy state, selecting (hypothetically) between three possible force unification energy levels with their associated IVB families. (See: "Table of the Higgs Cascade"; see also: "The Higgs Boson VS the Spacetime Metric".) The IVBs therefore function as "time machines" or "worm holes" connecting the primordial with the present-day Cosmos, protecting across the eons a symmetry of uniformity within elementary leptonic particle species.

Lepton Decays:
(antiparticles underlined)
(Particle-antiparticle pairs are shown enclosed in parenthesis and with an "x" between the pair members - not to be confused with the bold uppercase "X" IVB.)

1) A tau decays (via an antimuon-muon particle pair complex formed by the W-) to a tau neutrino, a muon antineutrino, and a muon. Within the complex, the tau and antimuon cancel each others' electric charges, releasing their neutrinos and providing the energy to materialize the muon product.

3) An electron and electron neutrino interact via an electron-positron complex formed with the neutral "Z" IVB, and swap identities. The original electron and virtual positron annihilate, releasing the original neutrino and a replacement electron (this reaction could also be written using a neutrino-antineutrino virtual pair, giving the same result). Here the "Z" (like all IVBs) provides a secure environment in which particles (including virtual particles) are in such close proximity that charges and energy can be exchanged with no danger of violating any conservation laws (essentially reproducing the primordial environment in which these interactions first took place). The rationale for the heavy IVBs and the weak force mechanism is precisely to safeguard the conservation laws during exchanges and transformations of energy and identity among elementary and virtual particles. Although the neutral interaction above only results in a simple "bounce" (scattering), the electrically neutral neutrino has no possibility for interaction with matter other than through a heavy weak force IVB - which is why neutrinos interact so rarely.

Examples of Weak Force Decays: Mesons and Baryons

A negative pion (ud)- decays (via an antimuon-muon particle pair complex formed by the W-), producing a muon antineutrino, and a muon. Because quark partial flavor charges are not strictly conserved, once the pion's electric charge is canceled by the antimuon, the meson, being composed of a matter-antimatter quark pair, will simply self-annihilate, supplying the energy necessary to materialize the decay products.

1) "Beta decay": a neutron (udd) decays in a two-step process, via an antipion-pion pair, followed by a positron-electron particle pair complex (both formed by the W-), producing a proton (udu)+, a positron neutrino, and an electron. Baryon decay and transformation is a major function of the mesons, complementing their baryon-binding role in compound atomic nuclei, in which they accomplish virtual (rather than actual) transformations between protons and neutrons, creating "nucleons". Virtual mesons are the donors (alternative charge carriers) of quark flavors in weak force transformations of baryons. Within the first complex, the d quark of the positive meson annihilates a d quark in the baryon, and replaces it with an up quark, transforming the neutron to a proton. This annihilation also helps supply the energy to materialize the negative pion which immediately forms another W- complex with a positron-electron virtual particle pair. In the second complex, the pion and positron cancel each other's electric charges, releasing the positron's neutrino and supplying the energy to materialize the final electron. The neutralized remains of the pion, which is a quark-antiquark combination, simply self-annihilates, as the partial flavors of quarks are not strictly conserved. Although the reaction is shown in two steps for clarity, in nature it may occur in only one. The complexity of the decay pathway, combined with the tiny energy differential between the neutron and proton, is the reason for the extreme slowness of this reaction (half-life of ~15 minutes).

2) A proton (duu)+ restructures in a two-step process, via a pion-antipion pair, followed by an electron-positron particle pair complex (both formed by the W+), producing a neutron (dud), an electron neutrino, and a positron. This reaction requires an energy input. The reaction mechanism is similar to that detailed for beta decay (above); and as in beta decay, while shown in two steps for clarity, in nature may proceed in one step.

Hypothetical Weak Force Proton and Leptoquark Decays

A) [(u+ x u-)(uud+)]X+ -----> vlq + vu + u+
B) [(ud+ x ud-)(uud+)]X+ -----> vlq + ud+ + y

A) A proton (uud+) decays via the super-heavy X+ IVB, producing a leptoquark neutrino (vlq), a muon neutrino (vu), and an antimuon (u+).
B) The same, except that mesons rather than muons serve as the alternative charge carriers. A photon (y) and positive pion (ud+) are produced in the product, along with the leptoquark neutrino (vlq). Note that different conservation laws (allowing the conversion of quarks to leptons and vice versa) apply at the GUT force unification or "X" IVB energy level. Here the proton is compressed by the heavy "X" IVB to the leptoquark configuration, vanishing the proton's color charge (in the limit of "asymptotic freedom"); the color charge of baryons is otherwise conserved (in reactions mediated by the "W" IVB, for example). (See also: "Proton Decay and the 'Heat Death' of the Cosmos".)

2) leptoquark decay (hypothetical - during the "Big Bang" only - asymmetries in this decay are the source of matter and the material Universe):

The anti-member of an electrically neutral leptoquark-antileptoquark pair decays (mediated via the "X" IVB and the leptoquark neutrino), producing a neutral meson composed of bottom-antibottom quarks; the matter leptoquark does not decay, but expands to produce a heavy neutral baryon (hyperon) (bbt), whose "hidden" leptoquark identity charge is balanced by the explicit identity charge of the remaining anti-leptoquark neutrino. (One of several possible decay pathways.)

In a leptoquark, the quarks are compressed by the "X" IVB to "leptonic size", vanishing the color charge ("in the limit of asymptotic freedom"). An electrically neutral leptoquark should decay like a very heavy neutral lepton, producing a leptoquark antineutrino plus energy in the form of neutral particles (photons, mesons, etc.). Once released from the grip of the "X", the quarks in the unreacted leptoquark simply expand under the force of their mutual repulsion to form an electrically neutral heavy baryon (hyperon). The electrical neutrality of the leptoquark pair is necessary to allow time for the asymmetric weak force decay to occur: the requirement of electrical neutrality is the reason why baryons must be composed of sub-elementary particles (quarks) bearing partial charges which can sum to zero. (See: "The Origin of Matter and Information".)

Leptoquarks are presumed to be very heavy; leptoquark neutrinos may also be very massive (for neutrinos). Leptoquark neutrinos are prime "dark matter" candidates; if they indeed account for the bulk of the dark matter currently supposed to be present in the Cosmos, they would have to weigh approximately 5-6 proton masses (5-6 Gev) - since there should be one antileptoquark neutrino for each proton produced in the "Big Bang". If this seems too heavy for a neutrino, recall that the weak force comprises massive bosons (the W and Z) which weigh much more than this, even though bosons in the other forces are massless. 5 Gev is also less than the lower bound predicted for the least massive supersymmetric particle, the "neutralino" (10-20 Gev).

Discussion of the Leptonic Spectrum

The leptonic spectrum of elementary particles is clearly some sort of resonant series. In this case it appears to be a resonant series of the combined electromagnetic and weak forces. The leptonic series identifies the mass-energy at which the electromagnetic/photon and weak force/neutrino frequencies are in "sympathetic" vibration - the leptonic particle series delineates the nodes of sympathetic vibration or resonance between these two forces at the electroweak energy level. The electromagnetic force can probably produce particles of any rest-mass energy, but it is only at the nodes of the resonance series where these two forces are in sympathetic vibration that massive particles can be paired with neutrino "identity" charges. This joining of forces is necessary to produce massive particles that can be conserved in the sense that they can be exactly reproduced at any time and place, matching up precisely with others of their kind, including annihilation reactions with their antiparticles, all because the neutrino provides a cross-reference of their identity. Hence, whereas the variable magnetic field of the electromagnetic force functions to maintain the invariance of electric charge, the variable energy of the neutrino of the electroweak force functions to maintain the invariant mass of its associated elementary lepton.

The electroweak union is remarkable for its "leptonic spectrum", which at the highest energy level involves the leptoquark and the strong force in a "grand unified" energy level. In this, the too-massive leptoquark divides under its own self-repulsion to more stable, lower energy configurations of three quarks, held together by the gluon field of the strong force, the latter arising naturally among the quark subunits, holding them together in whole quantum units of charge (including the zero charge of a neutron-like configuration). Electrically neutral leptoquarks are subject to asymmetric weak force decays (because of their long half-lives), producing the matter-only atomic constituents of our cosmos. "Lepton number" or "hidden" identity charges of the massive leptons and baryons are balanced by the explicit identity charges of neutrinos, one for each type of lepton and anti-lepton (including the presumed leptoquark neutrinos). Electrical charges of the baryons are the same as those of the leptons because baryons are derived from the leptonic spectrum via the leptoquark, and the leptons are therefore able to act as alternative charge carriers for the baryons' electric charges (or for other leptons or mesons).