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In particle physics, a massless particle is a particle whose invariant mass is theoretically

zero. Currently, the only known massless particles are gauge bosons, the photon (carrier of

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electromagnetism) and the gluon (carrier of the strong force). However, gluons are never

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observed as free particles, since they are confined within hadrons.[1][2]

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Neutrinos were, until recently, thought to be either massless or have a small mass.
However, because neutrinos change flavour as they travel, at least two of the types of
neutrinos must have mass.

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1 Special relativity

Special pages

2 Dynamics

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3 Gravitons

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4 See also

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5 References

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Special relativity

[edit]

The behavior of massless particles is understood by virtue of special relativity. For example,
these particles must always move at the speed of light and hence do not experience time.
In this context, they are sometimes called luxons to distinguish them from bradyons and

tachyons.

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See also: Mass in special relativity

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Dynamics

[edit]

Massless particles are known to experience the same gravitational acceleration as other
particles (which provides empirical evidence for the equivalence principle) because they do
have relativistic mass,
which is what acts as the gravity charge. Thus, perpendicular

components of forces acting on massless particles simply change their direction of motion,
the angle change in radians being GM/rc2 with gravitational lensing, a result predicted by
general relativity.
The component of force parallel to the motion still affects the particle, but
by changing the frequency rather than the speed. This is because the momentum
of a
massless particle depends only on frequency and direction (compare
with the momentum of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massless_particle[04/01/2015 16:19:55]

Massless particle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

low speed massive objects, which depends on mass, speed, and direction). Massless
particles move in straight lines in spacetime, called geodesics,
and gravitational lensing
relies on spacetime curvature. Gluon-gluon interaction is a little different: they exert forces
on each other but, because the acceleration is parallel to the line connecting them (albeit
not at simultaneous moments), the acceleration will be zero unless the gluons move in a
direction perpendicular to the line connecting them (so
that velocity is perpendicular to
acceleration).

Gravitons

[edit]

Theories which postulate that gravity is quantized introduce gravitons

- massless tensor
bosons (i.e. it has spin 2) which mediate gravitational interaction. So far there is no
experimental evidence supporting their existence.

See also

[edit]

Relativistic particle

References

[edit]

1. ^ Valencia, G. (1992). "Anomalous Gauge-Boson Couplings At Hadron Supercolliders". AIP

Conference Proceedings 272: 15721577. arXiv:hep-ph/9209237
Bibcode:1992AIPC..272.1572V

. doi:10.1063/1.43410

2. ^ Debrescu, B. A. (2004). "Massless Gauge Bosons Other Than The Photon". Physical
Review Letters 94 (15): 151802. arXiv:hep-ph/0411004
Bibcode:2005PhRvL..94o1802D

Categories: Special relativity

. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.151802

Particle physics

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