General Knowledge - Chemistry - Discussion

In particle physics, mesons are hadronic subatomic particles composed of one quark and one antiquark, bound together by strong interactions. Because mesons are composed of quark sub-particles, they have a physical size, notably a diameter of roughly one femtometer, which is about times the size of a proton or neutron. All mesons are unstable, with the longest-lived lasting for only a few hundredths of a microsecond. Charged with mesons decay (sometimes through mediating particles) to form electrons and neutrinos. Uncharged mesons may decay to photons. Both of these decays imply that color is no longer a property of the byproducts. Outside the nucleus, mesons appear in nature only as short-lived products of very high-energy collisions between particles made of quarks, such as cosmic rays (high-energy protons and neutrons) and ordinary matter. Mesons are also frequently produced artificially in high-energy particle accelerators in the collisions of protons, antiprotons, or other particles.

Mesons are the associated quantum-field particles that transmit the nuclear force between hadrons that pull those together into a nucleus. Their effect is analogous to photons that are the force carriers that transmit the electromagnetic force of attraction between oppositely charged protons and electrons that allow individual atoms to exist, and further, to pull atoms together into molecules. Higher energy (more massive) mesons were created momentarily in the Big Bang, but are not thought to play a role in nature today. However, such heavy mesons are regularly created in particle accelerator experiments, in order to understand the nature of the heavier types of quark that compose the heavier mesons.

Mesons are part of the hadron particle family and are defined simply as particles composed of two quarks. The other members of the hadron family are the baryons: subatomic particles composed of three quarks. Some experiments show evidence of exotic mesons, which do not have the conventional valence quark content of one quark and one antiquark.

Each type of meson has a corresponding antiparticle (antimeson) in which quarks are replaced by their corresponding antiquarks and vice versa. For example, a positive pion is made of one up quark and one down antiquark; and its corresponding antiparticle, the negative pion is made of one up antiquark and one down quark.

Are mesons present in all atom?

Proton+neutron= mesons.

Is mesons are intermediates of proton & neutron or separate particle.

Mesons are positively charged particle right?

Neutron- atomic mass, proton- atomic no.

Then, How it hold in the case of hydrogen?

Differences between neutrons and protons.

Meson is small chargeless particle.

Where these mesons are situated?