Standard Model

The quantum field theory describing known elementary particles and the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions. It excludes gravity and does not explain several observed features, including dark matter.

Elementary particle: A particle with no known internal structure, treated as a basic constituent of matter or interactions. The Standard Model classifies its fundamental degrees of freedom as elementary particles.
Quantum field theory: A framework that describes particles as excitations of quantum fields and calculates their interactions. The Standard Model is a quantum field theory rather than a collection of classical particle laws.
Fermi theory of beta decay: Enrico Fermi’s 1933–1934 theory describing beta decay as a contact interaction involving four fermions. It provided an early framework for weak processes later incorporated into a gauge theory.
W and Z bosons: The massive charged and neutral gauge bosons that mediate weak interactions. Their discovery at CERN in 1983 confirmed a major electroweak prediction.
Dark matter: Matter inferred from its gravitational effects that does not emit, absorb, or reflect enough light to be seen directly. No known Standard Model particle accounts for the dominant dark matter in the universe.
Quark: A family of spin-one-half particles that experience the strong interaction and combine into hadrons. Six quark flavors supply the constituents of protons, neutrons, and other hadrons.
Electroweak interaction: The unified description of electromagnetic and weak interactions at energies above electroweak symmetry breaking. The theory combines electromagnetism and the weak force before the Higgs field differentiates them.
Parity violation: The failure of a physical process to remain unchanged under spatial reflection. The discovery of parity violation in weak interactions reshaped the model’s account of chirality.
Top quark: The heaviest known quark, discovered at Fermilab in 1995. Its discovery completed the model’s predicted set of six quark flavors.
Baryon asymmetry: The observed excess of matter over antimatter in the universe. The model’s known sources of CP violation are insufficient to explain the cosmic imbalance.

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