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Neutral particle

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In physics, a neutral particle is a particle without an electric charge, such as a neutron.

Stable or long-lived neutral particles

[edit]

Long-lived neutral particles provide a challenge in the construction of particle detectors, because they do not interact electromagnetically, except possibly through their magnetic moments. This means that they do not leave tracks of ionized particles or curve in magnetic fields. Examples of such particles include photons,^{[PDG 1]} neutrons,^{[PDG 2]} and neutrinos.^{[PDG 3]}

Other neutral particles

[edit]

Other neutral particles are very short-lived and decay before they could be detected even if they were charged. They have been observed only indirectly. They include:

Z bosons^{[PDG 4]}
Dozens of heavy neutral hadrons:
- Neutral mesons such as the π⁰
  ^{[PDG 5]} and K⁰
  ^{[PDG 6]}
- The neutral Delta baryon (Δ⁰
  ),^{[PDG 7]} and other neutral baryons, such as the Ξ⁰
  ^{[PDG 8]} and Λ⁰
  ^{[PDG 9]}

References

[edit]

K. Nakamura et al. (Particle Data Group), JP G 37, 075021 (2010) and 2011 partial update for the 2012 edition

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A neutral particle is a subatomic particle that carries no net electric charge, distinguishing it from charged particles like electrons or protons that interact via the electromagnetic force.^[1] In particle physics, neutral particles encompass both elementary constituents of matter and force carriers within the Standard Model, playing pivotal roles in nuclear stability, fundamental interactions, and cosmic phenomena.^[2] Among elementary neutral particles, leptons include the three types of neutrinos—electron neutrino, muon neutrino, and tau neutrino—which are nearly massless, interact primarily through the weak nuclear force, and are abundantly produced in processes like beta decay and solar fusion, making them key to understanding neutrino oscillations and the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe.^[3] Gauge bosons such as the photon mediate the electromagnetic force, enabling light and atomic interactions; the eight gluons carry the strong force binding quarks into hadrons; and the Z boson facilitates neutral weak interactions, crucial for processes like radioactive decay.^[2] The Higgs boson, a scalar particle, is also neutral and imparts mass to other particles via the Higgs field, confirmed through experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.^[2] Composite neutral particles include the neutron, a baryon composed of three quarks bound by the strong force, residing in atomic nuclei alongside protons to provide stability without contributing to the atom's overall charge.^[4] Neutrons decay into protons, electrons, and antineutrinos with a half-life of about 10 minutes outside nuclei, influencing nuclear reactions^[5] and neutron stars.^[6] Other examples encompass neutral mesons like the pion and eta, which decay rapidly and are studied in high-energy collisions to probe quantum chromodynamics.^[7] Neutral particles are indispensable for advancing knowledge in cosmology, where the cosmic neutrino background makes relic neutrinos one of the most abundant particle species in the universe, second only to photons,^[8] and in technology, such as neutron scattering for materials science or photon-based optics. Ongoing research at facilities like CERN and Fermilab continues to explore their properties, including potential sterile neutrinos or dark matter candidates, to refine the Standard Model and beyond.^[2]

Definition and Fundamental Properties

Electric Charge Neutrality

A neutral particle is defined as a subatomic particle, either elementary or composite, that carries no net electric charge, expressed as

q = 0

. This property fundamentally distinguishes neutral particles from their charged counterparts, such as the electron with charge

q = -e

or the proton with

q = +e

, where

e \approx 1.602 \times 10^{-19}

C is the elementary charge magnitude.^[9]^[10] The zero electric charge of neutral particles has profound implications for their interactions with other matter and fields. Unlike charged particles, which experience long-range electromagnetic forces via the exchange of virtual photons, neutral particles do not couple directly to the electromagnetic field in quantum electrodynamics (QED) at the tree level. As a result, they are exempt from Coulomb scattering and do not produce or respond to electric fields in classical electrostatics, limiting their primary interaction channels to the strong nuclear force (for composite hadrons), the weak nuclear force (for certain leptons and quarks), and universal gravity. This neutrality enables neutral particles to penetrate dense materials with minimal deflection, a trait exploited in experimental detection strategies.^[11]^[12] Historically, the recognition of electric charge neutrality in massive particles emerged in the early 1930s, culminating in James Chadwick's 1932 experiments demonstrating the existence of a neutral particle with mass nearly equal to that of the proton. Chadwick's work, interpreting penetrating radiation from beryllium bombarded by alpha particles as arising from these uncharged entities, resolved longstanding puzzles in nuclear structure and confirmed neutrality through conservation laws applied to collision kinematics, without reliance on electromagnetic deflection.^[13]^[14] In quantum field theory, the absence of electric charge manifests as the lack of a minimal coupling term—proportional to

q

—between the particle's field and the photon field in the QED Lagrangian, precluding tree-level electromagnetic vertices and thus eliminating long-range Coulomb potentials. Higher-order loop effects may induce weak, indirect couplings for some neutral particles, but these are suppressed and do not alter the dominant non-electromagnetic interaction profile.^[11]^[15]

Mass and Spin Characteristics

Neutral particles exhibit a wide range of rest masses, from massless cases where

[m = 0](/page/M×0)

, such as photons and gluons, to massive ones reaching hundreds of GeV/

c^2

, such as the Z boson with

m \approx 91.19

GeV/

c^2

and the Higgs boson with

m \approx 125

GeV/

c^2

.^[16] Neutrinos have the smallest non-zero masses among known neutral particles, with the sum of the three flavors < 0.12 eV/

c^2

from cosmological data (as of 2024).^[17] This variability influences their propagation and interactions, with massless neutral particles always traveling at the speed of light, while massive ones can be at rest or relativistic. The total energy

E

of a neutral particle is described by the relativistic relation

E = \sqrt{p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4},

E=p2c2+m2c4

, derived from special relativity, where $p$ denotes momentum and $c$ the speed of light; neutrality ensures this equation lacks charge-dependent electromagnetic terms.^[18] The intrinsic angular momentum, or spin quantum number $s$ , classifies neutral particles into those with integer values ( $s = 0, 1, 2, \dots$ ) or half-integer values ( $s = 1/2, 3/2, \dots$ ). The spin-statistics theorem dictates that integer-spin particles follow Bose-Einstein statistics, permitting indistinguishable particles to occupy identical quantum states, whereas half-integer-spin particles adhere to Fermi-Dirac statistics, obeying the exclusion principle that prohibits such overlap.^[19] This dichotomy profoundly affects collective behaviors, such as condensation in bosonic systems or degeneracy pressure in fermionic ones. Based on spin, neutral particles fall into representational categories under the Lorentz group: scalars with $s = 0$ , which are invariant under rotations; vectors with $s = 1$ , transforming as three-dimensional vectors; and spinors with $s = 1/2$ , requiring double-valued representations to describe their transformations.^[20] These categories underpin the quantum field descriptions of neutral particles, linking spin to their field-theoretic formulations. Experimentally, rest mass is measured using decay kinematics, reconstructing the invariant mass from the four-momenta of decay products in collider events, or through scattering thresholds where energy balances reveal mass scales.^[21] Spin determination relies on angular momentum conservation in production, decay, and scattering reactions, with analyses of decay angular distributions and polarization correlations providing definitive assignments.^[22] Neutrality facilitates these measurements by minimizing electromagnetic interference, enabling cleaner probes of weak and strong interactions.

Classification of Neutral Particles

Bosonic vs. Fermionic Neutral Particles

Neutral particles in particle physics are classified as bosons or fermions according to their spin, which dictates their obedience to distinct quantum statistics and behavioral properties in multi-particle systems. Bosons possess integer spin angular momentum (0, 1, 2, ...) and follow Bose–Einstein statistics, permitting any number of identical bosons to occupy the same quantum state simultaneously.^[15] This property enables collective phenomena like Bose–Einstein condensation.^[15] For instance, photons—electrically neutral bosons with spin 1—can coherently occupy identical states in laser emission through stimulated emission.^[23] Fermions, in contrast, have half-integer spin (1/2, 3/2, ...) and adhere to Fermi–Dirac statistics, enforced by the Pauli exclusion principle that forbids two identical fermions from sharing the exact same quantum state.^[15]^[24] Neutrinos, fundamental neutral leptons with spin 1/2, exemplify this behavior in processes like beta decay.^[15] Neutral bosons in the Standard Model are chiefly gauge bosons, including the massless photon (mediating electromagnetism), the massive Z boson (neutral component of the weak interaction), and gluons (carriers of the strong force, electrically neutral despite color charge).^[15] The Higgs boson, a spin-0 scalar, represents another neutral bosonic particle responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking.^[15] Neutral fermions encompass fundamental particles like the three generations of neutrinos (electron, muon, and tau) and composite hadrons such as the neutron, a spin-1/2 baryon composed of quarks.^[15] These distinctions underpin the structure of matter and interactions: bosons generally mediate fundamental forces, while fermions build the fermionic matter content of the universe. The differing statistics manifest in the average occupation number

\bar{n}

for a single-particle state of energy

E

\bar{n} = \frac{1}{e^{(E-\mu)/kT} \pm 1},

with the plus sign for fermions (Fermi–Dirac distribution) and the minus sign for bosons (Bose–Einstein distribution); here,

\mu

is the chemical potential,

k

is Boltzmann's constant, and

T

is the temperature.^[25]

Stable vs. Unstable Neutral Particles

Neutral particles are classified as stable if their mean lifetime exceeds the age of the universe, approximately

4.35 \times 10^{17}

seconds (as of 2024), rendering decay effectively impossible due to energy conservation principles that prohibit accessible lighter final states.^[26] Examples include the photon and neutrinos (with lower limits on lifetimes exceeding

10^{22}

years). This stability arises when no kinematically allowed decay channels exist within the particle's mass constraints. In contrast, unstable neutral particles possess finite lifetimes, spanning a vast range from ultrashort durations around

10^{-23}

seconds for high-energy resonances to longer scales such as

10^{10}

years in certain cases, exemplified by the free neutron's mean lifetime of approximately 880 seconds^[27] or the neutral pion's lifetime of about

8.5 \times 10^{-17}

seconds.^[28] The lifetime

\tau

of an unstable particle is inversely related to its total decay width

\Gamma

through the fundamental relation

\tau = \hbar / \Gamma

, where

\Gamma

quantifies the total probability rate of all possible decay modes.^[29] For neutral particles, direct decays to a single photon are forbidden by charge conservation. However, electromagnetic decays are possible via multi-photon channels or for composite particles with internal charge structure, such as the neutral pion (π⁰) decaying to two photons. In cases where such electromagnetic channels are unavailable, like for the neutron or Z boson, decay processes are governed by the weak interaction (or strong for some resonances). This reliance on weak mediation results in slower decay rates compared to analogous charged particles that can access electromagnetic channels.^[30] A conventional threshold distinguishes "long-lived" unstable neutral particles as those with

\tau > 10^{-10}

seconds, enabling observable displacements in detectors over distances of several centimeters at relativistic speeds.^[31]

Prominent Examples

Stable or Long-Lived Neutral Particles

The neutron is a composite baryon consisting of one up quark and two down quarks, exhibiting zero electric charge, a mass of 939.56542052(54) MeV/c², and spin 1/2. While stable when bound within atomic nuclei—owing to the overall charge balance that prevents beta decay—free neutrons decay primarily via the weak interaction through the process

n \to p + e^- + \bar{\nu}_e

, with a mean lifetime of approximately 879.4 seconds. This decay mode underscores the neutron's role in nuclear stability and its relevance in astrophysical processes, such as neutron star formation and big bang nucleosynthesis, where free neutrons contribute to light element abundances. Neutrinos, the only known fundamental fermions that are electrically neutral, exist in three flavors: electron neutrino (

\nu_e

), muon neutrino (

\nu_\mu

), and tau neutrino (

\nu_\tau

), each with spin 1/2 and extremely small masses summing to less than approximately 0.12 eV/c² (PDG 2024 upper limit).^[17] Their long lifetimes—effectively infinite on cosmological scales—arise from interactions solely via the weak force and gravity, rendering them nearly non-interacting with matter and allowing propagation over vast distances. Neutrino oscillations, where flavors mix during propagation due to non-zero mass differences, provide key evidence for physics beyond the minimal Standard Model and influence solar, atmospheric, and supernova neutrino fluxes.^[32] The photon, a fundamental gauge boson with zero mass, spin 1, and helicity ±1, serves as the mediator of the electromagnetic force and possesses an infinite lifetime due to the unbroken U(1) symmetry of quantum electrodynamics. As the quantum of electromagnetic radiation, it enables light propagation across the universe and underpins atomic structure, chemical bonding, and all observed electromagnetic phenomena. The antineutron mirrors the neutron's properties as its antiparticle, comprising one anti-up quark and two anti-down quarks, with identical mass, spin 1/2, and zero charge; it decays via

\bar{n} \to \bar{p} + e^+ + \nu_e

with the same lifetime of about 879.4 seconds when free, while remaining stable in anti-nuclei. Similarly, anti-neutrinos (

\bar{\nu}_e

\bar{\nu}_\mu

\bar{\nu}_\tau

) share the flavors, minuscule masses, spin 1/2, and weak-only interactions of neutrinos, exhibiting analogous oscillations and cosmological persistence.^[32] Gluons, the massless spin-1 gauge bosons of quantum chromodynamics, carry color charge and mediate the strong force between quarks, but color confinement prevents their observation as free particles, rendering them effectively long-lived within stable hadrons like protons and neutrons.^[33] This confinement ensures the stability of ordinary matter by binding quarks into color-neutral composites, with gluons contributing to the asymptotic freedom that allows perturbative calculations at high energies.^[34]

Short-Lived or Unstable Neutral Particles

Short-lived or unstable neutral particles are those with lifetimes typically on the order of 10^{-17} seconds or shorter, decaying rapidly via strong, electromagnetic, or weak interactions and playing crucial roles in high-energy physics experiments. These particles are primarily produced in particle accelerators through processes like hadron collisions or electroweak interactions, and their study provides insights into fundamental symmetries and forces. Unlike stable neutral particles, their ephemeral nature requires specialized detection techniques, such as tracking decay products like photons or leptons. The neutral pion, denoted

\pi^0

, is a pseudoscalar meson with a mass of

134.9768 \pm 0.0005

MeV/

c^2

and spin 0. It predominantly decays electromagnetically into two photons via

\pi^0 \to \gamma\gamma

, with a branching ratio of

98.823 \pm 0.034\%

, and has a mean lifetime of

(8.43 \pm 0.13) \times 10^{-17}

s. This decay mode is produced abundantly in hadron collisions at facilities like the LHC, where

\pi^0

mesons serve as probes for quark-gluon plasma formation.^[28] Neutral kaons, including

K^0

and

\bar{K}^0

, form a system of pseudoscalar mesons with masses around 497.614 ± 0.024 MeV/

c^2

and spin 0, undergoing weak decays that mix due to flavor-changing processes. The short-lived component,

K_S^0

, decays primarily to

\pi^+\pi^-

with a branching ratio of about 69.2% and has a lifetime of

(8.954 \pm 0.004) \times 10^{-11}

s, while the long-lived

K_L^0

has a lifetime of

(5.116 \pm 0.021) \times 10^{-8}

s but is still considered unstable relative to stable particles. These decays, observed in experiments like those at CERN's NA62, are pivotal for studying CP violation, as deviations from expected rates reveal subtle asymmetries in matter-antimatter interactions.^[35] The Z boson, an electroweak gauge boson with spin 1 and mass

91.1880 \pm 0.0020

GeV/

c^2

(PDG 2024), mediates neutral weak currents and decays almost exclusively to fermion-antifermion pairs, such as

e^+e^-

or quark pairs, with a total width of

2.4955 \pm 0.0023

GeV corresponding to a lifetime of approximately

2.64 \times 10^{-25}

s. Produced in electron-positron collisions at LEP or proton-proton interactions at the LHC, its decays provide precise tests of the Standard Model's electroweak sector.^[36] The Higgs boson, a scalar particle with spin 0 and mass

125.20 \pm 0.11

GeV/

c^2

(PDG 2024), discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC, decays via the weak interaction into modes like bottom quark pairs (

b\bar{b}

) or W boson pairs, with a width of about 4.1 MeV implying a lifetime shorter than

10^{-22}

s. Its production through gluon fusion or vector boson fusion in high-energy collisions underscores its role in endowing particles with mass, though its rapid decay necessitates reconstruction from multiple channels.^[37] Vector meson resonances like the

\rho^0

(770), with mass

775.26 \pm 0.03

MeV/

c^2

and spin 1, exemplify strongly decaying neutral particles, primarily via

\rho^0 \to \pi^+\pi^-

with a width of

149 \pm 0.8

MeV, yielding a lifetime of about

4.4 \times 10^{-24}

s. These are generated in hadronic interactions and contribute to understanding strong force dynamics in nuclear matter.^[38]

Theoretical and Experimental Context

Role in the Standard Model

In the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, neutral particles are integral to both the composition of matter and the mediation of fundamental interactions. In the matter sector, neutral fermions form key building blocks of ordinary matter. Fundamental neutral fermions include the three generations of left-handed neutrinos, which are part of the SU(2)_L doublets with charged leptons and participate in weak interactions via charged and neutral currents. These neutrinos were originally massless in the minimal SM but observations of neutrino oscillations necessitate small masses, addressed in extensions like the Type-I seesaw mechanism, where right-handed sterile neutrinos—singlets under the SM gauge group—are introduced with Majorana mass terms much larger than the electroweak scale, suppressing the active neutrino masses through mixing. Composite neutral fermions, such as the neutron (udd quark content), arise from quantum chromodynamics (QCD) binding of quarks and are essential for stable atomic nuclei, exhibiting fermionic statistics under the Pauli exclusion principle despite their composite nature. Neutral gauge bosons mediate the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces without carrying electric charge. The photon, associated with the unbroken U(1)_EM symmetry, mediates the electromagnetic force and appears in the SM Lagrangian through the kinetic term for the electromagnetic field strength tensor,

-\frac{1}{4} F_{\mu\nu} F^{\mu\nu}

, where

F_{\mu\nu} = \partial_\mu A_\nu - \partial_\nu A_\mu

and

A_\mu

is the photon field; this term ensures gauge invariance under U(1)_EM transformations. The Z boson mediates neutral weak currents, coupling to left-handed fermions via the SU(2)_L gauge group and to both chiralities through mixing with the hypercharge gauge boson B after electroweak symmetry breaking. Gluons, the eight color-octet mediators of the strong force under SU(3)_C, are electrically neutral and color-charged but facilitate color-neutral hadron formation, with their interactions described by the non-Abelian Yang-Mills term

-\frac{1}{4} G^a_{\mu\nu} G^{a\mu\nu}

in the QCD Lagrangian, where

G^a_{\mu\nu}

is the gluon field strength. The Higgs mechanism provides masses to particles while preserving charge neutrality. The SM Higgs field is an SU(2)_L doublet with a neutral component that acquires a vacuum expectation value (VEV) of approximately 246 GeV through spontaneous symmetry breaking, generating masses for the W^\pm and Z bosons via their couplings to this neutral VEV without introducing charged Goldstone modes that would violate electromagnetic gauge invariance; the physical Higgs boson, discovered in 2012, is the neutral excitation around this VEV. This mechanism ensures that the photon remains massless, as it is orthogonal to the massive combinations. Neutral particles also play roles in SM extensions addressing unresolved issues. In supersymmetric (SUSY) models, the neutralino—a neutral mixture of gauginos and higgsinos—emerges as a leading weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) candidate for cold dark matter, stable under R-parity conservation and with relic density tunable to match cosmological observations. Sterile neutrinos, right-handed and non-interacting under SM gauge forces, extend the seesaw mechanism and could explain neutrino masses while contributing to dark matter or leptogenesis. In electroweak unification, neutral particles are central to the symmetry breaking SU(2)_L × U(1)_Y → U(1)_EM: the neutral weak currents mediated by the Z boson arise post-breaking, with the photon emerging as the massless combination of the W^3 and B fields, ensuring long-range electromagnetic interactions while massive neutral currents enable processes like neutrino scattering.

Detection and Study Methods

Neutral particles, lacking electric charge, do not produce tracks in magnetic fields, posing unique challenges for their detection in high-energy physics experiments; instead, they are primarily identified through indirect signatures such as energy deposits from decay products or interactions that generate charged particles.^[39] Indirect detection methods often rely on calorimeters to measure energy from neutral particle decays, for instance, the two-photon decay of the neutral pion (π⁰) is reconstructed by identifying electromagnetic showers in calorimeter systems like those used in the LHCb experiment.^[40] For neutrinos, which escape detection directly, missing transverse energy (MET) signatures arise from unbalanced momentum in collision events, as unobserved neutral particles carry away energy without depositing charge.^[41] Direct detection techniques exploit interactions that produce observable signals without requiring decay. Neutrons, for example, are detected via elastic scattering with protons in organic scintillators, where the recoil proton ionizes the medium to produce light flashes distinguishable from gamma backgrounds through pulse-shape discrimination.^[42] Neutrinos are observed using Cherenkov radiation in large water or ice volumes; in the Super-Kamiokande detector, neutrino interactions generate charged particles that emit Cherenkov light cones detected by photomultiplier tubes, enabling studies of oscillation parameters with atmospheric neutrinos.^[43] Similarly, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory instruments Antarctic ice with optical sensors to capture Cherenkov light from secondary particles produced by high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, achieving sensitivities to GeV-to-PeV fluxes.^[44] Particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facilitate the study of neutral particles such as the Z boson and Higgs boson through their production in proton-proton collisions and subsequent decays into leptons or photons, reconstructed in multipurpose detectors like ATLAS and CMS. These environments provide high luminosity for rare processes, though backgrounds from charged particle pileup complicate neutral signal isolation. Astrophysical sources complement accelerator studies by probing ultra-high-energy neutral particles; cosmic ray experiments and neutrino telescopes like IceCube detect neutral components via air shower arrays or in-ice interactions, revealing insights into extragalactic accelerators—for instance, in February 2025, the KM3NeT telescope reported the detection of an ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrino at approximately 220 PeV, providing new constraints on astrophysical neutrino fluxes.^[45]^[46] Key challenges in neutral particle detection include the absence of curvature in magnetic spectrometers, leading to reliance on calorimetry and timing for identification, and substantial backgrounds from charged particles mimicking neutral signatures through instrumental effects or secondary neutrals.^[47] Stability influences observability, with long-lived neutrals like neutrinos requiring massive detectors for sufficient interaction rates, while short-lived ones demand high-resolution tracking of decay vertices.^[39]

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