The Brief Life of a Hadron: QCD unquenched

Understand

Once upon a time, the picture of hadrons was of mesons made of a quark and an antiquark, and baryons of three quarks.

• Though hadrons heavier than the ground states inevitably decay by the strong interaction, the successes of the quark model might suggest their decays are a mere perturbation.
• However, Eef van Beveren, whose career we celebrate here, recognised that decays are an integral part of the life of a hadron.
• The channels into which they decay are often essential for their very existence.