Upsilon meson
Appearance
Composition | b b |
---|---|
Statistics | Bosonic |
Family | Mesons |
Interactions | Strong, weak, electromagnetic, gravity |
Symbol | ϒ |
Antiparticle | Self |
Discovered | E288 experiment (1977) |
Types | 1 |
Mass | 9.46030(26) GeV/c2 |
Mean lifetime | 1.21×10−20 s |
Electric charge | 0 e |
Spin | 1 |
Isospin | 0 |
Hypercharge | 0 |
Parity | -1 |
C parity | -1 |
The Upsilon meson (
ϒ
) is a quarkonium state (i.e. flavourless meson) formed from a bottom quark and its antiparticle. It was discovered by the E288 experiment team, headed by Leon Lederman, at Fermilab in 1977, and was the first particle containing a bottom quark to be discovered because it is the lightest that can be produced without additional massive particles. It has a lifetime of 1.21×10−20 s and a mass about 9.46 GeV/c2 in the ground state.
-
Quark structure of the Upsilon meson
See also
[edit]- Oops-Leon, an erroneously-claimed discovery of a similar particle at a lower mass in 1976.
- The
ϕ
particle is the analogous state made from strange quarks. - The
J/ψ
particle is the analogous state made from charm quarks. - List of mesons
References
[edit]- D.C. Hom; et al. (1977). "Observation of a Dimuon Resonance at 9.5 Gev in 400-GeV Proton-Nucleus Collisions" (PDF). Physical Review Letters. 39 (5): 252–255. Bibcode:1977PhRvL..39..252H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.39.252.
- J. Yoh (1998). "The Discovery of the b Quark at Fermilab in 1977: The Experiment Coordinator's Story" (PDF). AIP Conference Proceedings. 424: 29–42. Bibcode:1998AIPC..424...29Y. doi:10.1063/1.55114.
- S. Eidelman et al. (Particle Data Group) (2004). "Review of Particle Physics –
ϒ
meson" (PDF). Physics Letters B. 592 (1–4): 1. arXiv:astro-ph/0406663. Bibcode:2004PhLB..592....1P. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2004.06.001.