quark model

American  

noun

Physics.

1. a scheme that explains the quantum numbers of all the baryons and mesons by assuming that baryons are composed of three quarks and mesons of a quark and an antiquark, with different combinations of quark and antiquark flavors giving different sets of quantum numbers.

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Example Sentences

Although quarks have never been directly observed, several predictions of the quark model were quickly confirmed, and their properties explain all known hadron characteristics.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

It is a secondary reaction in which an accelerator-produced K − collides with a proton via the strong force and conserves strangeness to produce the Ω− with characteristics predicted by the quark model.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

“It's sort of like high-energy physics before the quark model came about,” he says.

From Nature • Nov. 23, 2012

Perhaps the greatest milestone in this quest has been the quark model of matter.

From Time Magazine Archive