The omega meson () is a flavourless meson formed from a superposition of an up quark–antiquark and a down quark–antiquark pair. It is part of the vector meson nonet and mediates the nuclear force along with pions and rho mesons.
Properties The most common decay mode for the ω meson is at , followed by at .
Particle name Particle symbol Antiparticle symbolQuarkcontent Rest mass (MeV/c2)IGJPCSCB' Mean lifetime (s)Commonly decays to (>5% of decays) Omega meson (782) Self 782.66 ± 0.13 0− 1−− 0 0 0 ++ or+
The quark composition of the meson can be thought of as a mix between , and states, but it is very nearly a pure symmetric – state. This can be shown by deconstructing the wave function of the into its component parts. We see that the and mesons are mixtures of the SU(3) wave functions as follows. , ,
where is the nonet mixing angle, and .
The mixing angle at which the components decouple completely can be calculated to be , which almost corresponds to the actual value calculated from the masses of 35°. Therefore, the meson is nearly a pure symmetric – state.
See also List of mesons Quark model Vector meson
References