The lambda baryons (Λ) are a family of subatomic hadron particles containing one up quark, one down quark, and a third quark from a higher flavour generation, in a combination where the quantum wave function changes sign upon the flavour of any two quarks being swapped (thus slightly different from a neutral sigma baryon, Σ0). They are thus baryons, with total isospin of 0, and have either neutral electric charge or the elementary charge +1.
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, i.e. different in kind from the K meson discovered in 1947 by George Rochester and Clifford Charles Butler; they were produced by cosmic rays and detected in photographic emulsions flown in a balloon at 70,000 feet (21,000 m). Though the particle was expected to live for ~10−23 s, it actually survived for ~10−10 s. The property that caused it to live so long was dubbed strangeness and led to the discovery of the strange quark. 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). 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, which made use of the SPS accelerator at CERN confirmed the existence of the Λ+c (charmed lambda baryon), with a lifetime of (7.3±0.1)×10−13 s. 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/c2 and width 17.2 MeV/c2, which seem to be smaller than their Breit–Wigner values. 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. 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.
Types 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; 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. 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.
‡ ^ Particle unobserved, because the top-quark decays before it has sufficient time to bind into a hadron ("hadronizes").
See also
List of baryons
References
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.
