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A scarab chart for visualizing mass patterns in light-hadron multiplets

General Physics 2026-07-10 v1

Abstract

Particle charts are useful teaching tools, but the usual quark-model multiplet diagrams emphasize symmetry labels more than mass ordering. This paper presents a compact ``scarab chart'' for light hadrons that keeps the familiar isospin and hypercharge information while adding a mass-sensitive ordering. The chart is intended for modern physics or introductory particle physics teaching. Each tile represents a light meson or baryon, with columns labelled by isospin projection, rows ordered by an integer pion-anchored mass count, tile colour identifying hypercharge, and border colour corresponding to the pseudoscalar nonet, vector-meson nonet, baryon octet, or baryon decuplet. The chart is proposed as a pedagogical visualization. The result gives students a single visual diagram in which quark content, multiplet, strangeness, and approximate mass scale can be compared.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.14139,
  title  = {A scarab chart for visualizing mass patterns in light-hadron multiplets},
  author = {R. M. Marinaro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.14139},
  year   = {2026}
}