Omega meson

Composition	ω:$\approx \frac{u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}}{\sqrt{2}}$
Statistics	Bosonic
Family	Mesons
Interactions	Strong,weak,electromagnetic,gravity
Symbol	ω
Antiparticle	Self
Theorized	Yoichiro Nambu[1] (1957)
Discovered	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1961)[2][3]
Types	1
Mass	782.66±0.13 MeV/c2
Mean lifetime	(7.58±0.11)×10−23 s
Decays into	π+ +π0 +π− orπ0 +γ
Electric charge	0e
Spin	1
Isospin	0
Hypercharge	0
Parity	−1
C parity	−1

Theomega meson (ω) is aflavourlessmeson formed from asuperposition of anup quark–antiquark and adown quark–antiquark pair. It is part of thevector meson nonet^[4][5] and mediates thenuclear force along withpions andrho mesons.

The most common decay mode for the ω meson isπ⁺
π⁰
π⁻
at89.2%±0.7%, followed byπ⁰
γ at8.34%±0.26%.^[6]

Particle name	Particle symbol	Antiparticle symbol	Quark content	Rest mass (MeV/c2)	IG	JPC	S	C	B'	Mean lifetime (s)	Commonly decays to (>5% of decays)
Omega meson[6]	ω(782)	Self	$\frac{u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}}{\sqrt{2}}$	782.66 ± 0.13	0−	1−−	0	0	0	(7.58±0.11)×10−23 s	π+ +π0 +π−  or π0 +γ

The quark composition of theω meson can be thought of as a mix betweenuu,dd andss states, but it is very nearly a pure symmetricuu–dd state. This can be shown by deconstructing thewave function of theω into its component parts. We see that theω andϕ mesons are mixtures of theSU(3) wave functions as follows.^[7]

${\displaystyle \omega ={\psi }_8\sin \theta +{\psi }_1\cos \theta }$,

${\displaystyle \varphi ={\psi }_8\cos \theta -{\psi }_1\sin \theta }$,

where

${\displaystyle \theta }$ is the nonet mixing angle,

${\displaystyle {\psi }_1=\frac{u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}+s\overline{s}}{\sqrt{3}}}$ and

${\displaystyle {\psi }_8=\frac{u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}-2s\overline{s}}{\sqrt{6}}}$.

The mixing angle at which the components decouple completely can be calculated to be$\arctan \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\approx {35.3}^{\circ }$, which almost corresponds to the actual value calculated from the masses of 35°. Therefore, theω meson is nearly a pure symmetricuu–dd state.

• List of mesons
• Quark model
• Vector meson

• Mesons
• Onia
• Subatomic particles with spin 1

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• Short description is different from Wikidata