meson

mes·on  (mzn, ms-, mzn, -sn)

n.

Any of a family of subatomic particles that participate in strong interactions, are composed of a quark and an antiquark, and have masses generally intermediate between leptons and baryons. See Table at subatomic particle.

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me·sonic (m-znk, -sn, m-) adj.

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meson [mee-zon]

Noun

Physics any of a group of elementary particles that has a mass between those of an electron and a proton [Greek misos middle + -on, indicating an elementary particle]

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meson  (mzn, ms-, mzn, -sn)

Any of a family of subatomic particles that are composed of a quark and an antiquark. Their masses are generally intermediate between leptons and baryons, and they can have positive, negative, or neutral charge. Mesons form a subclass of hadrons and include the kaon, pion and J/psi particles. Mesons were originally believed to be the particles that mediated the strong nuclear force, but it has since been shown that the gluon mediates this force. See Table at subatomic particle.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

meson - an elementary particle responsible for the forces in the atomic nucleus; a hadron with a baryon number of 0 mesotron b-meson - exceedingly short-lived meson boson - any particle that obeys Bose-Einstein statistics but not the Pauli exclusion principle; all nuclei with an even mass number are bosons hadron - any elementary particle that interacts strongly with other particles J particle, psi particle - a neutral meson with a large mass K particle, k-meson, kaon, kappa-meson - an unstable meson produced as the result of a high-energy particle collision pi-meson, pion - a meson involved in holding the nucleus together; produced as the result of high-energy particle collision