Parity formulae, orbital angular momentum, mesons

binbagsss
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So a particle has intrinsic parity ##\pm 1 ## .
The parity of a system of particles is given by product of intrinsic parities and the result is: ##(-1)^l ## (1).

Questions:

1) How does this result follow?
and what exactly is ##l## here? so it's the orbital angular momentum, so say a particle is made up of 3 quarks, then it's described to be in a certain state, ##1p## , ##1s## states etc, so ##l## is the orbital angular momentum of this state?

2) For a meson ##p=(-1)^{l+1}##
The reasoning in my book being that the quark and antiquark have opposite intrinsic parities,

So I assume this followss from (1), although I am not seeing how??

But, in the result (1) , this is a general result for any system of particles right? So quarks and antiquarks of the same type could be included in any system yet ## (-1)^l ## still holds?Thanks in advance.
 
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[itex]l[/itex] is the angular momentum number. The particles in general will be described by spherical harmonic functions [itex]Y_{lm}(\theta, \phi)[/itex] which have the given parity:
[itex]\hat{P} Y_{lm} (\theta, \phi) \equiv Y_{lm} (\pi-\theta, \phi+ \pi)= (-1)^l Y_{lm} (\theta, \phi)[/itex]

Take for example a meson.
The meson will have a quark and antiquark [itex]q, \bar{q}[/itex].
So the intrinsic parity of the one will be +1 and the parity of the other will be -1.
On the other hand, the meson can have some spatial angular momentum number [itex]l[/itex].
So the total parity will be: [itex](+1) \times (-1) \times (-1)^l = (-1)^{l+1}[/itex]
 
So I guess you make a wrong assumption before your eq.1.
"The parity of a system of particles is given by product of intrinsic parities "
This is wrong (probably a misconception).

Again take a meson... it is a [itex]q \bar{q}[/itex] state with some angular momentum [itex]l[/itex] due to the quarks. Since the meson has an orbital angular momentum [itex]l[/itex], its angular distributions are described by the spherical harmonics [itex]Y_{lm}[/itex]. It's from this relation that you get the eq.1 [itex](-1)^l[/itex], and not by getting the intrinsic parities.
http://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/reviews/quarkmodrpp.pdf
Sec. 14.2
 
ChrisVer said:
[itex]l[/itex]
The meson will have a quark and antiquark [itex]q, \bar{q}[/itex].
So the intrinsic parity of the one will be +1 and the parity of the other will be -1.

Is this always the case with a particle and antiparticle, that they have opposite parities?
 
binbagsss said:
Is this always the case with a particle and antiparticle, that they have opposite parities?
For fermions, yes. For bosons, no.
 

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