Is there a reason why every meson and baryon has an integer electric charge?

Question

For example, why is there no meson existing of two up quarks, giving a charge of $\frac43$?

That duplicate doesn't have a particularly great answer, unfortunately — innisfree, May 24 '16 at 12:32

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 24 '16 at 12:32

It is one of the experimental observations that led to the standard model of particle physics. The model has symmetries ( SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) ) that build up the representations and these allow only for integer multiples charges, i.e. are consistent with observations.

For example, why is there no meson existing of two up quarks, giving a charge of 4/3?

You might say because there is no such a representation in the standard model, but in truth it is because we have never observed such a case. Had we observed it, we would have found a different standard model.

Is there a reason why every meson and baryon has an integer electric charge?

1 Answers1