Discovered in 1947, the Lambda particle was predicted to have a life of only 10-23 seconds. Experimentally, it was found to live for 10-10 seconds. Physicists described this property as "strangeness", and, ultimately, this led to the discovery of the strange quark. After this, the charmed Lambda, containing a charm quark, and bottom Lambda, containing a bottom quark, were discovered. Though predicted by the Standard Model, it is unlikely that the top lambda will be found due to the instability of the top quark; it decays before it has time to hadronize.
Baryons - Lambda Particles
| 1st Generation | 2nd Generation | 3rd Generation | |
| "Up" Type Quarks |
Up Quark Mass: 1.87-2.15 MeV Charge: 2/3 Spin: 1/2 ID: u, u |
Charm Quark Mass: 1.18-1.34 GeV Charge: 2/3 Spin: 1/2 ID: c, c |
Top Quark Mass: 172.6-173.6 GeV Charge: 2/3 Spin: 1/2 ID: t, t |
| "Down" Type Quarks |
Down Quark Mass: 4.63-4.95 MeV Charge: -1/3 Spin: 1/2 ID: d, d |
Strange Quark Mass: 90-100 MeV Charge: -1/3 Spin: 1/2 ID: s, s |
Bottom Quark Mass: 4.2 or 4.68 GeV Charge: -1/3 Spin: 1/2 ID: b, b |
Quark Summary (compiled from a number of different sources)
| Particle Type Click name for more: |
Quark Composition | Rest Mass in MeV |
| Proton | uud | 938.3 |
| Neutron | ddu | 939.6 |
| Lambda Charmed Lambda Bottom Lambda Top Lambda |
uds udc udb udt |
1,115.6 2,281.0 5,620.2 ---------- |
| Sigma | ||
| Delta | uuu, uud, udd, ddd | 1232.0 |
| Xi | ||
| Omega |
Physics
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Composite Particles
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