How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really?
6 hours ago
- #degrees-of-freedom
- #standard-model
- #particle-physics
- The Standard Model of particle physics includes 17 particles: 12 matter fermions, 4 force bosons, and 1 Higgs boson.
- Antiparticles double the count to 30, including 24 matter particles and 6 force particles.
- Eight gluons and color/anticolor variants of quarks further increase the total to 61.
- Chirality and polarization states expand the count to 118 distinct particle types.
- Degrees of freedom vary with energy scale, with theoretical calculations suggesting 995.5 in total.