Electron collides with an antimuon

[randombill]

What would happen if an electron collided with an antimuon? I'm assuming an antimuon is positively charged.

 

[Meir Achuz]

They would scatter like any two charged leptons. They would not annihilate.

 

[Bill_K]

They could annihilate into an electron neutrino and a muon antineutrino.

 

[Drakkith]

They could annihilate into an electron neutrino and a muon antineutrino.

Really? Even though they aren't antiparticles? I've never heard of annihilation of particles except with their own antiparticles.

 

[randombill]

It would be nice to see answers with supporting scientific evidence but I don't disbelieve any of you yet.

 

[Hepth]

Tree level is a t-channel decay, the electron and muon exchange a W boson, and the outgoing particles are the neutrinos as Bill_K says.
Either that or they scatter via photon exchange.

 

[kurros]

If you collide them with enough energy then a huge number of things can happen. Everything that usually happens in a particle collider. Overwhelmingly they will just scatter though.

If their energy is low enough they could form muonium, which is pretty cool (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muonium).

 

[Drakkith]

Tree level is a t-channel decay, the electron and muon exchange a W boson, and the outgoing particles are the neutrinos as Bill_K says.
Either that or they scatter via photon exchange.

Is that "annihilation"?

 

[kurros]

Is that "annihilation"?

I suppose it is a matter of terminology, but I personally wouldn't call it that. Each initial charged lepton and final neutrino are part of the same SU(2) doublet, so they are "sort of" flipside particles of each other. You couldn't possibly get anything else out of that W exchange. In a "real" annihilation you get some neutral mediator particle (Z, photon, gluon) in the s-channel which can then split into basically any other particle/antiparticle pair.

But you can call it what you like. I agree with Hepth that "decay" may be a better word, although it is quite an exotic sort of decay. It is a weak interaction so it would be quite rare.

Well ok maybe annihilation is a good word, you basically see nothing as a result of it, so it is maybe even a better annihilation than the usualy kind!

 

[Drakkith]

What do you mean by saying you wouldn't see anything as a result?

 

[kurros]

What do you mean by saying you wouldn't see anything as a result?

Well you aren't going to detect the neutrinos, so in your experiment it will just look like electrons and muons are vanishing. Some of the time, anyway.

 

[Drakkith]

Well you aren't going to detect the neutrinos, so in your experiment it will just look like electrons and muons are vanishing. Some of the time, anyway.

Ah, ok.