Leptons are elementary particles, including electrons, muons, taus, and neutrinos. They are fermions with a spin of ½, while bosons mediate force interactions. Leptons are lighter than quarks, and there are three types with associated neutrinos. Leptons have negative charge and can orbit atomic nuclei. The total number of leptons is conserved, but they can change types with high energy.
Leptons are a family of elementary particles that includes the electron, muon, tau and associated neutrinos. Like the quarks, which make up the protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus, the lepton is a fermion, which means it has a quantum spin of ½. Other fundamental particles with different spins are called bosons and mediate force interactions between fermions. Fermions, formed by the lepton and the quark, are the “flesh” of matter, while the bosons are the “skeleton”.
Compared to quarks, a lepton is light. The mass of an electron is 1⁄1836 of an atomic mass unit (amu), the approximate mass of a hydrogen atom. The non-lepton mass in the hydrogen atom comes from the nucleus. The other two lepton variants – the muon and the tau – are significantly heavier. The tau lepton weighs nearly twice as much as a proton.
There are three types of leptons, as mentioned earlier: the electron, the muon, and the tau. Each of these has an associated neutrino: the electron neutrino, the muon neutrino and the tau neutrino. Neutrinos have almost zero mass and no charge and travel close to the speed of light.
The electron and other basic leptons have a negative charge, are more stable than neutrinos, and can orbit atomic nuclei. The electron is the most stable of the three and can be found in all conventional matter. The muon and tau are created during particle accelerator experiments or through cosmic ray impacts. Each of these six particles has an associated antiparticle of opposite charge, bringing the total number of leptons to 12. These antiparticles are called antielectrons, antimuons, and antitaus.
When systems containing leptons interact with each other, the total number of leptons tends to be conserved. The rare circumstance in which the number is not conserved is called a chiral anomaly. Sometimes, leptons change types, but this usually requires high energies and heavier leptons are not very stable.
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