The Tau (particle) reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Tau (particle)

The Tau lepton (or tauon) is a negatively charged elementary particle with a high mass of 1777 MeV. It is associated with an antiparticle and a neutrino. It is a 3rd generation of matter particle, and quickly decays to a stable 1st generation (normal matter) particle. Due to approximate tauon number conservation (neutrino oscillations violate this "conservation" law) (lepton number conservation), a tau neutrino is created when a tauon decays to a lighter lepton (muon or electron). Except for its high mass and its instability, a tauon otherwise resembles an electron.

A tauon is also the only lepton that presents the possibility of decaying into hadrons, particularly pions. The other leptons do not have the necessary mass and the muon is actually a decay product of pions.

See Also

• List of particles

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