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Recently, I was thinking about spin and isospin. It's been a while since I've dealt with particle physics, so my knowledge may be a bit rusty.
In the Standard Model, we have three interactions with associated coupling constants e, gw and gs. A particle may have three different charges Qe, Qw, Qs which are multiples of e, gw and gs. Also we have three types of spin -"ordinary" spin, weak isospin, strong isospin- and their projections S3, T3 and I3.
These spin projections are related to the interactions but it isn't a one-to-one correspondence. Neutrinos for example have Qe=0 but S3 = ±1/2 and the weak isospin depends on Qe. Does this mixing of interactions only reflect the fact that we need the unified electroweak theory to explain some experimental facts or is there more to it?
Also, are the spin projections together equivalent to the charges? If yes, what is the idea of these different concepts and when do we use which one? If no, what's the difference between them?
Thanks
kith
In the Standard Model, we have three interactions with associated coupling constants e, gw and gs. A particle may have three different charges Qe, Qw, Qs which are multiples of e, gw and gs. Also we have three types of spin -"ordinary" spin, weak isospin, strong isospin- and their projections S3, T3 and I3.
These spin projections are related to the interactions but it isn't a one-to-one correspondence. Neutrinos for example have Qe=0 but S3 = ±1/2 and the weak isospin depends on Qe. Does this mixing of interactions only reflect the fact that we need the unified electroweak theory to explain some experimental facts or is there more to it?
Also, are the spin projections together equivalent to the charges? If yes, what is the idea of these different concepts and when do we use which one? If no, what's the difference between them?
Thanks
kith
