D meson

The D mesons are the lightest particle containing charm quarks. They are often studied to gain knowledge on the weak interaction. The strange D mesons (D_s) were called the "F mesons" prior to 1986.

Overview

The D mesons were discovered in 1976 during the Mark I experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Since the D meson is the lightest meson containing a charm quark, it must change the charm quark into another quark to decay. Quark transmutations take place via the weak interaction. In D mesons, the charm quark changes into a strange quark with a W particle and then decays into
K
s and
π
s.

List of D mesons

D mesons

Particle name	Particle symbol	Antiparticle symbol	Quark content	Rest mass (MeV/c2)	IG	JPC	S	C	B'	Mean lifetime (s)	Commonly decays to (>5% of decays)
D meson	D+	D−	c d	1,869.62 ± 0.20	1⁄2	0−	0	+1	0	1.040 ± 0.007 × 10−12	See D+ decay modes
D meson	D0	D0	c u	1,864.84 ± 0.17	1⁄2	0−	0	+1	0	4.101 ± 0.015 × 10−13	See D0 decay modes
Strange D meson	D+ s	D− s	c s	1968.47±0.33	0	0−	+1	+1	0	(5.00±0.07)×10−13	See D+ s decay modes
D meson	D∗+ (2010)	D∗− (2010)	c d	2,010.27.62 ± 0.17	1⁄2	1−	0	+1	0	6.9 ± 1.9 × 10−21[a]	D0 + π+ or D+ + π0
D meson	D∗0 (2007)	D∗0 (2007)	c u	2,006.97 ± 0.19	1⁄2	1−	0	+1	0	>3.1 × 10−22[a]	D0 + π0 or D0 + γ

^[a] ^ PDG reports the resonance width (Γ). Here the conversion τ = ħ⁄Γ is given instead.

See also

• List of mesons
• List of baryons
• List of particles
• Timeline of particle discoveries