Strange quark

The strange quark is an elementary quark flavor with electric charge −⅓ and greater mass than up and down quarks. It occurs in hadrons such as kaons and hyperons.

Quark: An elementary fermion that carries color charge and participates in the strong interaction. The strange quark is one of six quark flavors.
Strangeness: A quantum number that counts strange-quark content with a sign convention and is conserved by strong and electromagnetic interactions. It tracks strange-quark content in reactions and decays.
Kaon discovery: The experimental identification of kaons among cosmic-ray and accelerator-produced particles. Kaons were among the first particles whose unusual behavior prompted the idea of strangeness.
Strange quark matter: A hypothetical state of matter containing roughly comparable numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. It explores whether strange quarks could stabilize bulk quark matter.
Flavor (particle physics): A label distinguishing particle species that share the same basic interactions but differ in properties such as mass. Strangeness names the strange quark’s flavor and is conserved in strong interactions.
Kaon: A meson containing one strange or antistrange quark and one up- or down-type quark. Kaons are the clearest meson examples of strange-quark hadrons.
Strange particle: A hadron containing strange quarks, historically named for its unexpected production and decay behavior. The strange quark explains the shared properties of these particles.
Hypernucleus: A nucleus containing one or more hyperons in addition to ordinary protons and neutrons. Hypernuclei reveal how strange quarks behave in nuclear environments.
Color charge: The charge associated with the strong interaction, carried by quarks and gluons in three types. Like every quark, the strange quark carries color charge.
Hyperon: A baryon containing at least one strange quark. Hyperons show how strange quarks occur within three-quark baryons.

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