ON THE MASS HIERARCHY OF FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES

The mass hierarchy of all fundamental particles, leptons, baryons and mesons, is discussed here and an ordering principle based on the quark model of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is suggested. This pattern is r ead off the observed hadron mass multiplets. The lowest mass multiplet is that of the pseudoscalar mesons (i.e. total angular momentum J = 0 and space reflection property P = -1). I explain in derail for this f undamental multiplet how the different masses can be understood in ter ms of their constituent masses and their dynamical interaction energy. it is shown that the mass shift of the hadron of lowest mass (the pio n) plays a fundamental role in explaining all mass shifts within the p seudoscalar meson multiplet. The role of light quarks (up, down and st range) versus heavy quarks (charm, bottom and top) is pointed out. Bas ed on this I predict the electromagnetic mass shift of the B-meson sys tem to be relatively large and negative while the corresponding mass s hift of the as yet unobserved T meson is expected to be positive.