Charm Quark

Third-most massive quark, found in hadrons like J/Psi mesons.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Discovered in November 1974 via the J/ψ meson, found simultaneously at SLAC and Brookhaven.
• Its existence was predicted by the 1970 GIM mechanism to explain suppressed flavor-changing neutral currents.
• Charm-anticharm bound states, called charmonium, provide precision tests of quantum chromodynamics.

Specifications & Metrics

• MASS: 1.2729 ± 0.0045 GeV/c²
• SPIN: 1/2
• SYMBOL: c
• PDG ID: Q004
• PDG EDITION: PDG 2026
• CHARGE: +2/3 e

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