Text: Any hadron that contains one proton in its final set of decay products. Baryons are massive particles which are made up of three quarks in the standard model. This class of particles includes the proton and neutron. Other baryons are the lambda, sigma, xi, and omega particles. Baryons are distinct from mesons in that mesons are composed of only two quarks. Baryons and mesons are included in the overall class known as hadrons, the particles which interact by the strong force. Baryons are fermions, while the mesons are bosons. Besides charge and spin (1/2 for the baryons), two other quantum numbers are assigned to these particles: baryon number (B=1) and strangeness (S), which in the chart can be seen to be equal to -1 times the number of strange quarks included. The conservation of baryon number is an important rule for interactions and decays of baryons. No known interactions violate conservation of baryon number. Mesons are intermediate mass particles which are made up of a quark-antiquark pair. Three quark combinations are called baryons. Mesons are bosons, while the baryons are fermions.

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