What makes a particle fundamental

Or does the water get him instead? Nobody knows. We learn in school that matter is made of atoms and that atoms are made of smaller ingredients: protons, neutrons and electrons. As far as we can tell, quarks and electrons are fundamental particles, not built out of anything smaller. During a type of nuclear reaction known as beta decay, a nucleus spits out an electron and a fundamental particle called an antineutrino while a neutron inside the nucleus changes into a proton.

If an electron meets a positron at low velocities, they annihilate, leaving only gamma rays; at high velocities, the collision creates a whole slew of new particles. Part of what that means is that making a particle requires energy proportional to its mass. Neutrinos, which are very low mass, are easy to make; electrons have a higher threshold, while heavy Higgs bosons need a huge amount of energy.

But it takes more than energy to make new particles. You can create photons by accelerating electrons through a magnetic field, but you can't make neutrinos or more electrons that way. That is, whenever a system of qubits holographically encodes a region of space-time, there are always qubit entanglement patterns that correspond to localized bits of energy floating in the higher-dimensional world.

But if the it-from-qubit picture is right, then particles are holograms, just like space-time. Their truest definition is in terms of qubits. These researchers argue that quantum field theory, the current lingua franca of particle physics, tells far too convoluted a story. Physicists use quantum field theory to calculate essential formulas called scattering amplitudes, some of the most basic calculable features of reality.

When particles collide, amplitudes indicate how the particles might morph or scatter. Normally, to calculate amplitudes, physicists systematically account for all possible ways colliding ripples might reverberate through the quantum fields that pervade the universe before they produce stable particles that fly away from the crash site. Strangely, calculations involving hundreds of pages of algebra often yield, in the end, a one-line formula.

Amplitudeologists argue that the field picture is obscuring simpler mathematical patterns. Amplitudeologists believe that a mathematically simpler and truer picture of particle interactions exists. These dynamical interactions seemingly build from the ground up out of basic symmetries. We associate gravity with the fabric of space-time itself, while gluons move around in space-time.

Yet gravitons and gluons seemingly spring from the same symmetries. Arkani-Hamed and his collaborators, meanwhile, have found entirely new mathematical apparatuses that jump straight to the answer, such as the amplituhedron — a geometric object that encodes particle scattering amplitudes in its volume. Gone is the picture of particles colliding in space-time and setting off chain reactions of cause and effect.

We write particle physics in a math called quantum field theory. In that, there are a bunch of different fields; each field has different properties and excitations, and they are different depending on the properties, and those excitations we can think of as a particle. The wave is a deformation of the qubit ocean. Simons Foundation funding decisions have no influence on our coverage. More details are available here. Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox. Quanta Magazine moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation.

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We care about your data, and we'd like to use cookies to give you a smooth browsing experience. Please agree and read more about our privacy policy. What Is a Particle? Read Later. By Natalie Wolchover November 12, It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality.

Elementary particles are the basic stuff of the universe. They are also deeply strange. Nima Arkani-Hamed investigates the relationship between particle behavior and geometric objects. These efforts continue today, with experiments that make precision tests of the Standard Model and further improve measurements of particle properties and their interactions. Theorists work with experimental scientists to develop new avenues to explore the Standard Model. This research may also provide insight into what sorts of unknown particles and forces might explain dark matter and dark energy as well as explain what happened to antimatter after the big bang.

Scientific terms can be confusing. DOE Explains offers straightforward explanations of key words and concepts in fundamental science. The Standard Model includes the matter particles quarks and leptons , the force carrying particles bosons , and the Higgs boson. Artwork by Sandbox Studio, Chicago. Standard Model of Particle Physics Facts All ordinary matter, including every atom on the periodic table of elements, consists of only three types of matter particles: up and down quarks, which make up the protons and neutrons in the nucleus, and electrons that surround the nucleus.