lepton

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lepton

1
1. a former Greek monetary unit worth one hundredth of a drachma
2. a small coin of ancient Greece

lepton

2
Physics any of a group of elementary particles and their antiparticles, such as an electron, muon, or neutrino, that participate in electromagnetic and weak interactions and have a half-integral spin
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Lepton

An elementary particle having no internal constituents which interacts through the electromagnetic, weak, and gravitational forces, but does not interact through the strong (nuclear) force. Leptons are very small, less than 10-18 m in size. This is less than 10-3 the size of a nucleus and less than 10-8 the size of an atom. Indeed, existing measurements are consistent with leptons being point particles.

These properties of the lepton family of particles are to be contrasted with the properties of the quark family of particles. Quarks interact through the strong force as well as through the electromagnetic, weak, and gravitational forces. By means of the strong force, quark-antiquark pairs bind together to form hadrons such as the &pgr; meson, and the quarks bind together to form hadrons such as the proton. In contrast, leptons act as individual particles and can be studied as isolated particles whereas, as far as is known, quarks are always inside hadrons and cannot be studied as isolated particles. See Fundamental interactions, Hadron, Quarks

Six leptons are known. There are three known charged leptons: the electron (e), muon (μ), and tau (&tgr;). Associated with each charged lepton is a neutral lepton called a neutrino. A charged lepton and its associated neutrino is said to form a lepton generation. Thus there are three known lepton generations. See Electron, Neutrino

McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Physics. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

lepton

[′lep‚tän]
(particle physics)
A fermion having a mass smaller than the proton mass; leptons interact with electromagnetic and gravitational fields, but beyond this they interact only through weak interactions.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
Since long-baseline experiments are sensitive to the most unknown leptonic parameters, the possibility of using such correlations was studied not only in long-baseline but also in any neutrino experiment.
Valle, "Measuring the leptonic CP phase in neutrino oscillations with nonunitary mixing," Physical Review D: Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology, vol.
Hooper, "The galactic center GeV excess from a series of leptonic cosmic-ray outbursts," Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, vol.
Impact of Cosmic-Ray Physics on Dark Matter Indirect Searches
Gong, "Exotic vector charmonium and its leptonic decay width," Chinese Physics C, vol.
Study on the Resonant Parameters of Y (4220) and Y (4390)
[96] CMS Collaboration, "Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a W pair in the fully leptonic final state in pp collisions at [square root of s] = 8 TeV," CMS-PAS-HIG.
Searching for the Minimal Seesaw Models at the LHC and Beyond
Using the standard convention for [d.sup.J]-function [88], we finally obtain the double differential decay rates with a given leptonic helicity state ([[lambda].sub.l] = [+ or -]1/2), which are
Probing the Effects of New Physics in [[bar.B].sup.*] [right arrow] Pl[[bar.[nu]].sub.l] Decays
Cabibbo, "Unitary symmetry and leptonic decays," Physical Review Letters, vol.
Mass Spectra and Decay Constants of Heavy-Light Mesons: A Case Study of QCD Sum Rules and Quark Model
In the SM, the effective Hamiltonian for the semileptonic (K [right arrow] [pi][[nu].sub.[alpha]][[bar.[nu]].sub.[alpha]], K [right arrow] [[pi].sup.0][[nu].sub.[alpha]][[bar.[nu]].sub.[alpha]]) and pure leptonic [K.sub.L,S] [right arrow] [[nu].sub.[alpha]][[bar.[nu]].sub.[alpha]] processes is given by [62, 63]
Study of Rare Mesonic Decays Involving Di-Neutrinos in Their Final State
The obtained values for leptonic decay widths can be found in Tables 9 and 10 for charmonium and bottomonium, respectively.
S-Wave Heavy Quarkonium Spectra: Mass, Decays, and Transitions
Gaissmaier, "Systematic study of the impact of CP violating phases of the MSSM on leptonic high-energy observables," Physical Review D: Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology, vol.
The Discreet Charm of Higgsino Dark Matter: A Pocket Review
No mention has been made so far of the leptonic sector.
Composite Higgs Models after Run 2
These searches are based on leptonic decay of the Higgs boson.
Analysis of Top Quark Pair Production Signal from Neutral 2HDM Higgs Bosons at LHC

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