X and Y bosons

X and Y bosons
Composition Elementary particle
Statistics Bosonic
Status Hypothetical
Types 12
Mass ≈ 1015 GeV/c2
Decays into X: two quarks, or one antiquark and one charged antilepton
Y: two quarks, or one antiquark and one charged antilepton, or one antiquark and one antineutrino
Electric charge X: +4⁄3 e
Y: +1⁄3 e
Color charge triplet or antitriplet
Spin 1
Spin states 3
Weak isospin projection X: +1⁄2
Y: −1⁄2
Weak hypercharge 5⁄3
B − L 2⁄3

In particle physics, the X and Y bosons (sometimes collectively called "X bosons"[1]) are hypothetical elementary particles analogous to the W and Z bosons, but corresponding to a new type of force predicted by the Georgi–Glashow model, a grand unified theory.

Details

The X and Y bosons couple quarks to leptons, allowing violation of the conservation of baryon number, and thus permitting proton decay.

An X boson would have the following decay modes:[2]

X → u + u
X → e+ + d

where the two decay products in each process have opposite chirality, u is an up quark, d is a down quark and e+ is a positron.

A Y boson would have the following decay modes:[2]

Y → e+ + u
Y → d + u
Y → d + ν
e

where the first decay product in each process has left-handed chirality and the second has right-handed chirality and ν
e is an electron antineutrino.

Similar decay products exist for the other quark-lepton generations

In these reactions, neither the lepton number (L) nor the baryon number (B) is conserved, but B − L is. Different branching ratios between the X boson and its antiparticle (as is the case with the K-meson) would explain baryogenesis.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ta-Pei Cheng; Ling-Fong Li (1983). Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics. Oxford University Press. p. 437. ISBN 0-19-851961-3.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ta-Pei Cheng; Ling-Fong Li (1983). Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics. Oxford University Press. p. 442. ISBN 0-19-851961-3.