Lambda baryon
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lambda_baryon".

In particle physics, Lambda (Λ) baryons are baryons containing an up quark, a down quark, and a third quark, either a strange quark (Λ⁰), a charm quark (Λ+c) or a bottom quark (Λ0b). The first Lambda particle discovered (Λ⁰) was discovered in 1947 during a study of cosmic ray interactions. Though the particle was expected to live 10^-23 seconds, it actually survived for 10^-10 seconds. The property which caused it to live so long was dubbed strangeness, and led to the discovery of the strange quark. Furthermore, these discoveries led to a principle known as the conservation of strangeness, wherein lightweight particles do not decay as quickly if they exhibit strangeness (due to the fact that non-weak methods of particle decay must preserve the strangeness of the decaying baryon). The Lambda particle Λ⁰ decays into a proton and a negative pion or a neutron and a neutral pion.

List of Lambda baryons

In popular culture

• The LGBT group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center named themselves the Lambda Particles.

See also

• Delta baryon
• List of particles
• Nucleon
• Omega baryon
• Particle Physics
• Physics portal
• Quark model
• Standard model
• Sigma baryon
• Timeline of particle discoveries
• Xi baryon

References

1. ^ "Particle Data Groups: 2006 Review of Particle Physics - Lambda". Retrieved on 2008-04-20.
2. ^ "Physics Particle Overview - Baryons". Retrieved on 2008-04-20.
3. ^ "Particle Data Groups: 2006 Review of Particle Physics - Charmed Lambda". Retrieved on 2008-04-20.
4. ^ "Particle Data Groups: 2006 Review of Particle Physics - Bottom Lambda0". Retrieved on 2008-04-20.

• The Lambda Baryon
• The European Physical Journal C, Review of Particle Physics, 1998