TAU

subatomic particle similar to the electron but which, with a mass of 1,784 megaelectron volts (MeV), is approximately 3,500 times heavier. Like the electron and the muon (mass 106 MeV), the tau is an electrically charged member of the family of leptons (q.v.). All leptons are fermions (particles with half a unit of intrinsic angular momentum, or spin), and, unlike the particles called quarks, they do not feel the strong force. The tau has negative electric charge, while its antiparticle has positive electric charge. It is believed that the tau, like the electron and the muon, has a neutral partner, the tau-neutrino, although an experiment to demonstrate the existence of a distinct neutrino associated with the tau has yet to be performed. Being so massive, the tau is unstable, with a mean life of 3 10-13 second, and decays readily, via the weak force, into other particles. The tau was discovered through observations of its decay to muons and to electrons in the mid-1970s by a group led by Martin Perl at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California. Perl named the new particle, the third charged lepton, after the Greek letter that begins the word third. Christine Sutton