X and Y bosons
| Composition | Elementary particle |
|---|---|
| Statistics | Bosonic |
| Status | Hypothetical |
| Types | 12 |
| Mass | ≈ 1015GeV/c2 |
| Decays into | X: two quarks, or one antiquark and one charged antilepton Y: two quarks, or one antiquark and one charged antilepton, or one antiquark and one antineutrino |
| Electric charge | X: +4⁄3 e Y: +1⁄3 e |
| Color charge | nonzero |
| Spin | 1 |
| Spin states | 2 |
| Weak isospin projection | X: +1⁄2 Y: −1⁄2 |
| Weak hypercharge | 5⁄3 |
| B − L | 2⁄3 |
In particle physics, the X and Y bosons (or sometimes collectively called just X bosons[1]) are hypothetical elementary particles analogous to the W and Z bosons, but corresponding to a new type of force predicted by the Georgi–Glashow model, a grand unified theory.
[edit] Details
The X and Y bosons couple quarks to leptons, allowing violation of the conservation of baryon number and thus permitting proton decay.
An X boson would have the following decay modes:[2]
where the two decay products in each process have opposite chirality, u is an up quark, d is a down quark and e+
is a positron.
A Y boson would have the following decay modes:[2]
- Y → e+
+ u - Y → d + u
- Y → d + ν
e
where the first decay product in each process has left-handed chirality and the second has right-handed chirality and ν
e is an electron antineutrino.
Similar decay products exist for the other quark-lepton generations
In these reactions, neither the lepton number (L) nor the baryon number (B) is conserved, but B − L is. Different branching ratios between the X boson and its antiparticle (as is the case with the K-meson) would explain baryogenesis.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Ta-Pei Cheng; Ling-Fong Li (1983). Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics. Oxford University Press. p. 437. ISBN 0198519613.
- ^ a b Ta-Pei Cheng; Ling-Fong Li (1983). Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics. Oxford University Press. p. 442. ISBN 0198519613.
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