meson

American  

[mee-zon, -son, mez-on, mes-] / ˈmi zɒn, -sɒn, ˈmɛz ɒn, ˈmɛs- /

noun

• mesons
  plural

1. Physics. any hadron, or strongly interacting particle, other than a baryon. Mesons are bosons, having spins of 0, 1, 2, …, and, unlike baryons, do not obey a conservation law.

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meson British  

/ ˈmiːzɒn /

noun

1. Former name: mesotron. any of a group of elementary particles, such as a pion or kaon, that usually has a rest mass between those of an electron and a proton, and an integral spin. They are responsible for the force between nucleons in the atomic nucleus See also muon

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meson Scientific  

/ mĕz′ŏn′,mĕs′-,mē′zŏn′,-sŏn′ /

1. 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.

2. See Table at subatomic particle

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meson Cultural  

1. An elementary particle in the atomic nucleus.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• mesonic
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• mesons
  plural

Etymology

Origin of meson

1935–40; mes- + -on ¹ ( def. ); cf. mesotron

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

meson mesons

The results also suggest that the mass of the η′ meson may decrease when it is inside nuclear matter.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 25, 2026

This device allowed scientists to detect high-energy protons leaving the target and identify signals that indicate an η′ meson had been created and captured within the nucleus.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 25, 2026

The track she was looking at, later labelled k, was evidence of an unknown particle, now known as the kaon or K meson.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2024

To test the new hypothesis, the Brookhaven scientists plan to re-create their experiment with a different meson, called the J/psi meson, which is made of a quark-antiquark pair of a different favor.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 2, 2023

Yet through 1947, Lawrence’s attempts to capture an artificially produced meson on photographic film were unavailing.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

"Excited gluonic fields are what could be in these mesons where you have more than just the quark-antiquark pair," said Justin Stevens, a William & Mary physics professor and the spokesperson for GlueX.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026

This penguin decay is incredibly rare in the Standard Model: for every million B mesons, only one will decay in this manner.

From Science Daily ● May 26, 2026

Since then, the LHCb experiment has recorded three times as many B mesons.

From Science Daily ● May 26, 2026

The phi mesons were indeed spinning along with the quark-gluon soup but in ways very far from theoretical predictions.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 2, 2023

As physicists built bigger and more ambitious machines, they began to find or postulate particles or particle families seemingly without number: muons, pions, hyperons, mesons, K-mesons, Higgs bosons, intermediate vector bosons, baryons, tachyons.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson