Everything about Leptons totally explained
In physics, a
lepton is a sub-atomic particle with
spin of 1/2 that doesn't experience the
strong interaction (that is, the strong nuclear force). The leptons form a family of
fermions that are distinct from the other known family of fermions, the
quarks.
Properties of leptons
There are three known
flavors of lepton: the
electron, the
muon, and the
tau lepton or
tau (or sometimes tauon). Each flavor is represented by a pair of particles called a
weak doublet. One is a massive charged particle that bears the same name as its flavor (like the
electron). The other is a nearly massless neutral particle called a
neutrino (such as the
electron neutrino). All six of these particles have corresponding
antiparticles (such as the
positron or the
electron antineutrino). All known charged leptons have a
single unit of negative or positive electric charge (depending on whether they're particles or antiparticles) and all of the neutrinos and antineutrinos have zero electric charge. The charged leptons have two possible
spin states, while only one
helicity is observed for the neutrinos (all the neutrinos are
left-handed, and all the antineutrinos are
right-handed).
The masses of the leptons also obey a simple relation, known as the
Koide formula, but at present this relationship can't be explained.
When particles interact, generally the number of leptons of the same type (electrons and electron neutrinos, muons and muon neutrinos, tau leptons and tau neutrinos) remains the same. This principle is known as conservation of
lepton number. Conservation of the number of leptons of different flavors (for example, electron number or muon number) may sometimes be violated (as in
neutrino oscillation). A much stronger conservation law is the total number of leptons of all flavors, which is violated by a tiny amount in the
Standard Model by the so-called
chiral anomaly.
The couplings of the leptons to
gauge bosons are flavor-independent. This property is called
lepton universality and has been tested in measurements of the tau and muon
lifetimes and of Z-boson partial decay widths, particularly at the
Stanford Linear Collider and
Large Electron-Positron Collider(LEP) experiments.
Table of the leptons
Further Information
Get more info on 'Leptons'.
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