ASTRO 142 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Elementary Particle, Subatomic Particle, Lorentz Force
Document Summary
An elementary particle is a particle that is not made up of any smaller particles and are the building blocks of the universe. There are two main categories of elementary particles: fermions and bosons: fermions are matter particles and all matter is made up of fermions. They are divided into two types of particles: quarks and leptons: quarks = the basic building blocks for protons and neutrons. Opposite charges attract one another and the greater the charge, the greater the force: strong force is the force that binds the fundamental particles of matter together to form larger particles. What is inflation (as it applies to the universe). Inflation is a period of exponential increase in the scale factor, due to a nonzero vacuum energy density, that occurs early in the history of the universe in certain cosmological models. Sometime before the end of the unified epoch, the universe underwent a startling transition.
