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Overview

The lambda baryon Λ0 was first discovered in October 1950, by V. D. Hopper and S. Biswas of the University of Melbourne, as a neutral V particle with a proton as a decay product, thus correctly distinguishing it as a baryon, rather than a meson,¹ i.e. different in kind from the K meson discovered in 1947 by Rochester and Butler;² they were produced by cosmic rays and detected in photographic emulsions flown in a balloon at 70,000 feet (21,000 m).³ Though the particle was expected to live for ~10−23 s,⁴ it actually survived for ~10−10 s.⁵ The property that caused it to live so long was dubbed strangeness and led to the discovery of the strange quark.⁶ Furthermore, these discoveries led to a principle known as the conservation of strangeness, wherein lightweight particles do not decay as quickly if they exhibit strangeness (because non-weak methods of particle decay must preserve the strangeness of the decaying baryon).⁷ The Λ0 with its uds quark decays via weak force to a nucleon and a pion − either Λ → p + π− or Λ → n + π0.

In 1974 and 1975, an international team at the Fermilab that included scientists from Fermilab and seven European laboratories under the leadership of Eric Burhop carried out a search for a new particle, the existence of which Burhop had predicted in 1963. He had suggested that neutrino interactions could create short-lived (perhaps as low as 10−14 s) particles that could be detected with the use of nuclear emulsion. Experiment E247 at Fermilab successfully detected particles with a lifetime of the order of 10−13 s. A follow-up experiment WA17 with the SPS confirmed the existence of the Λ+c (charmed lambda baryon), with a lifetime of (7.3±0.1)×10−13 s.⁸⁹

In 2011, the international team at JLab used high-resolution spectrometer measurements of the reaction H(e, e′K+)X at small Q2 (E-05-009) to extract the pole position in the complex-energy plane (primary signature of a resonance) for the Λ(1520) with mass = 1518.8 MeV and width = 17.2 MeV which seem to be smaller than their Breit–Wigner values.¹⁰ This was the first determination of the pole position for a hyperon.

The lambda baryon has also been observed in atomic nuclei called hypernuclei. These nuclei contain the same number of protons and neutrons as a known nucleus, but also contains one or in rare cases two lambda particles.¹¹ In such a scenario, the lambda slides into the center of the nucleus (it is not a proton or a neutron, and thus is not affected by the Pauli exclusion principle), and it binds the nucleus more tightly together due to its interaction via the strong force. In a lithium isotope (7ΛLi), it made the nucleus 19% smaller.¹²

Types of lambda baryons

Lambda baryons are usually represented by the symbols Λ0, Λ+c, Λ0b, and Λ+t. In this notation, the superscript character indicates whether the particle is electrically neutral (0) or carries a positive charge (+). The subscript character, or its absence, indicates whether the third quark is a strange quark (Λ0) (no subscript), a charm quark (Λ+c), a bottom quark (Λ0b), or a top quark (Λ+t). Physicists expect to not observe a lambda baryon with a top quark, because the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that the mean lifetime of top quarks is roughly 5×10−25 seconds;¹³ that is about ⁠1/20⁠ of the mean timescale for strong interactions, which indicates that the top quark would decay before a lambda baryon could form a hadron.

The symbols encountered in this list are: I (isospin), J (total angular momentum quantum number), P (parity), Q (charge), S (strangeness), C (charmness), B′ (bottomness), T (topness), u (up quark), d (down quark), s (strange quark), c (charm quark), b (bottom quark), t (top quark), as well as other subatomic particles.

Antiparticles are not listed in the table; however, they simply would have all quarks changed to antiquarks, and Q, B, S, C, B′, T, would be of opposite signs. I, J, and P values in red have not been firmly established by experiments, but are predicted by the quark model and are consistent with the measurements.¹⁴¹⁵ The top lambda (Λ+t) is listed for comparison, but is expected to never be observed, because top quarks decay before they have time to form hadrons.¹⁶

‡ ^ Particle unobserved, because the top-quark decays before it has sufficient time to bind into a hadron ("hadronizes").

The following table compares the nearly-identical Lambda and neutral Sigma baryons:

See also

• Physics portal

• List of baryons

Further reading

• Amsler, C.; et al. (2008). "Review of Particle Physics" (PDF). Physics Letters B. 667 (1–5): 1–6. Bibcode:2008PhLB..667....1A. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2008.07.018. hdl:1854/LU-685594. S2CID 227119789.
• Caso, C.; et al. (1998). "Review of Particle Physics". European Physical Journal C. 3 (1–4): 1–783. Bibcode:1998EPJC....3....1P. doi:10.1007/s10052-998-0104-x. S2CID 195314526.
• Nave, R. (12 April 2005). "The Lambda baryon". HyperPhysics. Retrieved 14 July 2010.

References

1. Hopper, V.D.; Biswas, S. (1950). "Evidence Concerning the Existence of the New Unstable Elementary Neutral Particle". Phys. Rev. 80 (6): 1099. Bibcode:1950PhRv...80.1099H. doi:10.1103/physrev.80.1099. /wiki/Bibcode_(identifier) ↩

2. Rochester, G. D.; Butler, C. C. (1947). "Evidence for the Existence of New Unstable Elementary Particles". Nature. 160 (4077): 855–7. Bibcode:1947Natur.160..855R. doi:10.1038/160855a0. PMID 18917296. S2CID 33881752. /wiki/Bibcode_(identifier) ↩

3. Pais, Abraham (1986). Inward Bound. Oxford University Press. pp. 21, 511–517. ISBN 978-0-19-851971-3. 978-0-19-851971-3 ↩

4. The Strange Quark http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Particles/quark.html#c4 ↩

5. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λ" (PDF). Particle listings. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s018.pdf ↩

6. The Strange Quark http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Particles/quark.html#c4 ↩

7. The Strange Quark http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Particles/quark.html#c4 ↩

8. Massey, Harrie; Davis, D. H. (November 1981). "Eric Henry Stoneley Burhop 31 January 1911 – 22 January 1980". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 27: 131–152. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1981.0006. JSTOR 769868. S2CID 123018692. /wiki/Harrie_Massey ↩

9. Burhop, Eric (1933). The Band Spectra of Diatomic Molecules (MSc). University of Melbourne. http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/21419586?versionId=256398321933 ↩

10. Qiang, Y.; et al. (2010). "Properties of the Lambda(1520) resonance from high-precision electroproduction data". Physics Letters B. 694 (2): 123–128. arXiv:1003.5612. Bibcode:2010PhLB..694..123Q. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.052. S2CID 119290870. /wiki/ArXiv_(identifier) ↩

11. "Media Advisory: The Heaviest Known Antimatter". bnl.gov. Archived from the original on 2017-02-11. Retrieved 2013-03-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20170211164015/https://www.bnl.gov/rhic/news2/news.asp?a=1236&t=pr ↩

12. Brumfiel, Geoff (1 March 2001). "The Incredible Shrinking Nucleus". Physical Review Focus. Vol. 7, no. 11. http://physics.aps.org/story/v7/st11 ↩

13. Quadt, A. (2006). "Top quark physics at hadron colliders" (PDF). European Physical Journal C. 48 (3): 835–1000. Bibcode:2006EPJC...48..835Q. doi:10.1140/epjc/s2006-02631-6. S2CID 121887478. https://cds.cern.ch/record/1339554/files/978-3-540-71060-8_BookTOC.pdf ↩

14. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Baryons" (PDF). Particle summary tables. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/tables/rpp2008-sum-baryons.pdf ↩

15. Körner, J.G.; Krämer, M.; Pirjol, D. (1994). "Heavy Baryons". Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics. 33: 787–868. arXiv:hep-ph/9406359. Bibcode:1994PrPNP..33..787K. doi:10.1016/0146-6410(94)90053-1. S2CID 118931787. /wiki/ArXiv_(identifier) ↩

16. Ho-Kim, Quang; Pham, Xuan Yem (1998). "Quarks and SU(3) Symmetry". Elementary Particles and their Interactions: Concepts and phenomena. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. p. 262. ISBN 978-3-540-63667-0. OCLC 38965994. Because the top quark decays before it can be hadronized, there are no bound t t ¯ {\displaystyle t{\bar {t}}} states and no top-flavored mesons or baryons ... . 978-3-540-63667-0 ↩

17. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λ" (PDF). Particle listings. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s018.pdf ↩

18. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λc" (PDF). Particle listings. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s033.pdf ↩

19. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λ+c" (PDF). Decay modes. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s033.pdf ↩

20. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λb" (PDF). Particle listings. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s040.pdf ↩

21. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λ0b" (PDF). Decay modes. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s040.pdf ↩

22. Amsler, C.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2008). "Λ" (PDF). Particle listings. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/listings/s018.pdf ↩

23. Zyla, P.A.; et al. (Particle Data Group) (2020-08-14). "Review of Particle Physics". Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. 2020 (8): 083C01. Bibcode:2020PTEP.2020h3C01P. doi:10.1093/ptep/ptaa104. hdl:10481/66389. https://academic.oup.com/ptep/article/2020/8/083C01/5891211 ↩