The α-quantization of lepton, quark and particle lifetimes

Abstract

There are 196 elementary particles with well-measured lifetimes. Plotted logarithmically, they group into four Zones: (1) > 10−7 s; (2) 10−7–10−14 s; (3) 10−14–10−21 s; (4) 10−21–10−25 s, as follows: (1) neutron and muon; (2) quark ground-state particles with flavor-breaking electroweak decays: (3) quark ground-state particles with flavor-conserving and radiative decays; (4) short-lived excited states and high-energy W, Z, Higgs boson and t-quark states. Ground states have α-quantized lifetimes, while excited states occur with a continuum of values. An α-quantized lifetime grid is anchored on the π± lifetime, and extends over 12 powers of α, where α−1 ~ 137 is the fine structure constant. Ground-state lifetimes separate into (u,d), s, c, b flavor groups, each dominated by a single quark, in accordance with the rule (u,d) > s > b > c. Flavor-breaking lifetimes are longer than flavor-conserving lifetimes by a factor of ~ α−4. Each Zone (2) flavor group has a central lifetime, and deviations occur as integer factors of ~ 2, 3, or 4. This observed lifetime α-dependence is conjugate to an observed mass/energy α-dependence.