The Standard Model - 2. Leptons & focus on Electrons

Leptons & Electron Wave-Particle Duality 

Another group of the constituents of matter; the Leptons are made up of:

-The Electron (e)
-The Muon (μ)
-The Tau (τ)
and their neutrinos:
-The Electron Neutrino (ν
e)

-The Muon Neutrino  (ν
μ)

-and the Tau Neutrino (ν
τ)

 

Of the six leptons, three have an electric charge (the electron, the muon and the tau) and their neutrinos do not. Also for every lepton there is a respective ‘antilepton’.

The most fundamental and well known Lepton particle is most likely the electron, which plays huge roles in chemistry and physics. Electrons orbit the central nucleus of an atom which contains protons and neutrons. A famous quantum mechanics experiment which involves electrons; the double slit experiment, shows that electrons can act as both a particle – and a wave.

The diagram shows a screen with two slits, and a target at the back which registers the particle when it reaches the target.

Following the conventional rules of physics, if particles (or any similar objects for this test, i.e bullets) are shot through the slits it is expected that two patterns will form.
This would be relative to the number of slits, e.g two slits = two sites which the projectiles are recorded.

 However if the process uses  waves instead of particles the results are different ...

With waves, as their is two slits open - the waves diffract with both, interfere on the other side and a different pattern is formed; the interference pattern.

However for this to work for electrons they would need to go interact (thus go through) two slits at once, and arrive at the target on the other side.

*Please excuse my hideous diagrams ... they'll get better - I promise ...

This was just a brief post about Leptons and a quick focus on the wave-particle duality of electrons, so in my next post I will expand on Leptons and talk about Lepton decay.

Hope you enjoyed this little dose of particle physics - Thanks, Chris.