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Bottom antiquark

Bottom quark
Composition Elementary particle
Statistics Fermionic
Generation Third
Interactions Strong, Weak, Electromagnetic force, Gravity
Symbol
b
Antiparticle Bottom antiquark (
b
)
Theorized Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa (1973)
Discovered Leon M. Lederman et al. (1977)
Mass

4.18+0.03
−0.03
 GeV/c2
(MS scheme)

4.65+0.03
−0.03
 GeV/c2
(1S scheme)
Decays into

Charm quark, or

up quark
Electric charge 1/3 e
Color charge Yes
Spin 1/2
Weak isospin LH: −1/2, RH: 0
Weak hypercharge LH: 1/3, RH: −2/3

4.18+0.03
−0.03
 GeV/c2
(MS scheme)

Charm quark, or

The bottom quark or b quark, also known as the beauty quark, is a third-generation quark with a charge of −1/3 e. Although all quarks are described in a similar way by quantum chromodynamics, the bottom quark's large bare mass (around 4.2 GeV/c2, a bit more than four times the mass of a proton), combined with low values of the CKM matrix elements Vub and Vcb, gives it a distinctive signature that makes it relatively easy to identify experimentally (using a technique called B-tagging). Because three generations of quark are required for CP violation (see CKM matrix), mesons containing the bottom quark are the easiest particles to use to investigate the phenomenon; such experiments are being performed at the BaBar, Belle and LHCb experiments.

The bottom quark is also notable because it is a product in almost all top quark decays, and is a frequent decay product for the Higgs boson. The bottom quark was theorized in 1973 by physicists Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa to explain CP violation. The name "bottom" was introduced in 1975 by Haim Harari. The bottom quark was discovered in 1977 by the Fermilab E288 experiment team led by Leon M. Lederman, when collisions produced bottomonium. Kobayashi and Maskawa won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for their explanation of CP-violation. On its discovery, there were efforts to name the bottom quark "beauty", but "bottom" became the predominant usage.


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