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The concept goes back to Majorana's suggestion in 1937 [2] that electrically neutral spin- 1 / 2 particles can be described by a real-valued wave equation (the Majorana equation), and would therefore be identical to their antiparticle, because the wave functions of particle and antiparticle are related by complex conjugation, which leaves the Majorana wave equation unchanged.
Spin-1/2 Majorana fermions, such as the hypothetical neutralino, can be described as either a dependent 4-component Majorana spinor or a single 2-component Weyl spinor. It is not known whether the neutrino is a Majorana fermion or a Dirac fermion; observing neutrinoless double-beta decay experimentally would settle this question.
Ettore Majorana (/ m aɪ ə ˈ r ɑː n ə /, [2] Italian: [ˈɛttore majoˈraːna]; born on 5 August 1906 – likely dying in or after 1959) [1] was an Italian theoretical physicist who worked on neutrino masses.
Particles corresponding to Majorana spinors are known as Majorana particles, due to the above self-conjugacy constraint. All the fermions included in the Standard Model have been excluded as Majorana fermions (since they have non-zero electric charge they cannot be antiparticles of themselves) with the exception of the neutrino (which is neutral).
In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. [1] The Standard Model presently recognizes seventeen distinct particles—twelve fermions and five bosons.
In addition to satisfying the Majorana equation, if the neutrino were also its own antiparticle, then it would be the first Majorana fermion. In that case, it could annihilate with another neutrino, allowing neutrinoless double beta decay. [14] The other case is that it is a Dirac fermion, which is not its own antiparticle.
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Like all other quarks, the top quark is a fermion with spin-1/2 and participates in all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. It has an electric charge of + 2 / 3 e. It has a mass of 172.76 ± 0.3 GeV/c 2, [1] which is close to the rhenium atom mass.