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kashiark
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when do high energy photons become a paritcle/antiparticle pair?
malawi_glenn said:it can become when its energy is above twice the particle mass.
e.g. pair production of electron + positron is possible when the photon has energy above 2*m_e = 1022keV
kashiark said:why can't the momentum be transferred to to the particle/antiparticle pair? and what is it transferred to when they collide?
Particle-antiparticle pairs are pairs of subatomic particles that have opposite charges and other properties such as spin. They are created when high energy photons split into two particles of equal mass and opposite charge.
Particle-antiparticle pairs are formed through a process called pair production, where a high energy photon interacts with a nucleus or another particle and converts into a pair of particles with opposite charges. This process follows the law of conservation of energy and mass, where the combined energy and mass of the two particles must be equal to the energy and mass of the initial photon.
Particle-antiparticle pairs are significant because they provide insight into the fundamental nature of matter and antimatter. They also play a crucial role in understanding the early universe and the processes that led to the formation of matter.
Yes, particle-antiparticle pairs have been observed in experiments such as particle accelerators and cosmic ray detectors. These experiments have confirmed the existence of various types of particle-antiparticle pairs, including electron-positron pairs and quark-antiquark pairs.
Particle-antiparticle pairs can annihilate each other, releasing energy in the form of gamma rays. This process is the reverse of pair production and follows the law of conservation of energy. The annihilation of particle-antiparticle pairs is also a crucial concept in the development of technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans in medical imaging.