In physics, a charged particle is a particle with an electric charge. It may be an ion, such as a molecule or atom with a surplus or deficit of electrons relative to protons. It can also be an electron or a proton, or another elementary particle, which are all believed to have the same charge[1] (except antimatter). Another charged particle may be an atomic nucleus devoid of electrons, such as an alpha particle.
A plasma is a collection of charged particles, atomic nuclei and separated electrons, but can also be a gas containing a significant proportion of charged particles.
Examples
Positively charged particles
- protons and atomic nuclei
- positrons (antielectrons)
- alpha particles
- positive charged pions
- cations
Negatively charged particles
- electrons
- antiprotons
- muons
- tauons
- negative charged pions
- anions
Particles without an electric charge
- neutrons
- photons
- neutrinos
- neutral pions
| This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. |