Baryon

Contents

Key Stage 5

Meaning

A baryon is a type of hadron made of three quarks.

About Baryons

Baryons include:

• Proton - A type of baryon with a mass of 1.67x10^-27 and a charge of 1.60x10^-19, made of 2 Up-quarks and 1 Down-quark.
• Neutron - A type of baryon with a mass of 1.67x10^-27 and zero charge, made of 2 Down-quarks and 1 Up-quark.

There are many other baryons made from different groups of quarks. However, these are unstable and exist only for very short periods of time before decaying via the weak nuclear interaction into other, most stable, subatomic particles.

Baryons are affected by the:

• Strong Nuclear Interaction
• Weak Nuclear Interaction
• Electromagnetic Interaction
• Gravitational Interaction

Determining Baryon Composition

NB: You only need to memorise the names and quark composition of the proton and the neutron. However, you should be able to determine the quark composition given the charge and strangeness of a given baryon and by remembering the properties of the up-quark, down-quark and strange-quark.

Baryons can be shown in the following diagram:

The composition of these baryons can be determined given their charge and strangeness.