1. Introduction to the pages

This small website aims to show how typical particle interactions can be understood in terms of a few basic components and systems. It starts out by introducing the basic players: quarks, lepton and interaction particles. The families of quarks, leptons and interaction particles are introduced in a little more detail and then a large range of particles that were discovered in the latter half of the twentieth century are shown to be simple groupings of quarks and antiquarks.

The examples of interactions that we are going to consider towards the end of the site will be interpreted in terms of the reshuffling of those quarks and their transformations via the weak, strong and electromagnetic interactions. Those transformations are described in terms of Feynman vertices so the vertex types are introduced next. It is shown how each vertex can be reoriented to represent a different interaction. Once the particles have been introduced, the interaction types and their vertex representations have been presented, a series of examples of interactions are given. For each of the examples, the reaction is presented first in terms of the standard particle symbols, then the reaction is analysed in terms of the quark reshufflings and materialisation, then the Feynman vertex representation of the reaction is given. By studying the Feynman diagram you will see how the reaction simply follows the vertex rules and the requirements of changes within generations in the case of leptons, within and between generations in the case of the quarks.

If you are familiar with the components of the standard model then you might like to skip the first few pages and start at the page 'Interactions and Feynman vertices'.


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