TABLE OF CONTENTS D.Horv th
KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics H-1525 Budapest, Hungary, and Institute of Nuclear Research (ATOMKI), H-4001 Debrecen, Hungary
The present experimental evidence seems to support the Standard Model of elementary particles which interprets our world as consisting of 12 basic fermions: 6 quarks and 6 leptons with their antiparticles, 13 bosons mediating the strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions, and the mysterious Higgs boson. This chapter attempts to overview the basic features of the Standard Model with a minimal mathematical apparatus.
A traditional way of studying Nature is to dig deeper and deeper in the structure of matter ever increasing the spatial resolution, i.e., studying smaller and smaller objects. In this process each major step resulted in a new set of particles believed to be elementary: the four atoms of Democritus ( a-tom means indivisible), the elements, atoms of Dalton and Mendeleev, the atomic nucleus of Rutherford, and the so-called elementary particles of which the electron, the proton and the neutron are the most common, constituting most of our visible world. We will see that, in fact, the proton and the neutron are also composite particles.
In this review we shall try to summarize the present knowledge of particle physics on a popular level, with no attempt to go into the very difficult mathematical formalism involved. If the reader is confused, it is the fault of the author and not of the physical theory: that is very precisely elaborated and its...
