Decay Definition and 998 Threads

Hello, Sometime in the last 6 months I read that researchers analyzing data from the decay of a subatomic particle and reported that the decay appeared to be random or unpredictable. I recall they said this particular reaction was very low level. This would have been in either Science, Nature...

Hello! I am participating in a STEM fair(I am a middle schooler), and my scientific question is : Does the angle of the particle trails increase from beta decay when you introduce an electromagnetic influence? I have been at a loss for finding a helpful site. The ones that I have come...

Homework Statement "(a) Draw a quark-flow diagram for the weak decay \pi^{-}\rightarrow\mu^{-}+\overline{\nu_{\mu}} . Explicitly include the appropriate intermediate vector boson. (b) By considering the production of \mu^{-} and \overline{\nu_{\mu}} in the rest frame of the vector boson...

Homework Statement Suppose you have a 1.4g sample of old charcoal. It produces 0.7 beta decays per minute. How old is the charcoal. Given: 1g of carbon current day has 6.36x1010 atoms of 14C Homework Equations N = Noe-rt N = number of atoms in the sample (current-day) No =...

Hello, I'm currently in my last year of high school and I'm doing a project about the higgs particle decaying to two photons. I am using HYPATIA to analyse ATLAS events. When a higgs boson decays into two photons, you can see activity in the electromagnetic calorimeter without seeing a track...

Homework Statement Hi everyone, I'm having a bit of trouble with solving this problem: A ∏0 meson with rest mass m∏ has a kinetic energy K. It decays in flight into two photons whose paths are along the direction of motion of the meson. Find the energies of the two photons. Homework Equations...

Please, I'd need some help. Although I am not sure if this is again the correct thread, but since it concerns muon decay I bring it here. So... I am trying to find out why the differential below, in spherical cordinates becomes: d^{3}p_{\bar{v_{e}}}=-\frac{E_{\bar{v_{e}}} E_{v_{μ}}}{E_{e}}...

What is the decay time constant of the waveform? How to determine it from this oscilloscope? The waveforms are in the pictures below:

Hello there, This isn't specifically homework, it is study. I'm having a difficult time trying to understand how to calculate/estimate partial decay widths, \Gamma[\itex], and Branching Ratios. I haven't found very clear information online so far. Here's just an example below that I'd like...

I read in my textbook that a decay process involving the strong interaction has a very short lifetime (10^-23s) whereas a decay process involving the weak interaction has a longer lifetime (10^-10s). Why is this?

Homework Statement State whether (e^4-x) + 2 is an exponential growth function or an exponential decay function. Explain why. Homework Equations I want to use the formula f(x) = ae^kx where a>0, and k<0. The Attempt at a Solution I know it is an exponential decay formula...

Homework Statement A Kaon (k0) decays into two charged pions (π+ & π-), what is the minimum momentum required for the kaon so that none of the pions move backwards (in the opposite direction of the kaon) in the laboratory frame. Homework Equations Conservation of momentum...

In my class notes, the muon decay width is: \Gamma_\mu=\frac{G^2_F m^5_\mu}{192\pi^3} Yet, in Wikipedia (take that for what it's worth) it says that, once the corrections have been applied, the muon decay width takes the form: \Gamma_\mu=\frac{G^2_F...

Homework Statement A meson with rest mass 135 MeV has kinetic energy 1 GeV. It decays into two photons. 1 photon moves in the direction of motion, 1 is in the opposite. What are the energies of the photons? Homework Equations E=m_0c^2 E=hf λ'(\pi) = λ(\frac{(1+\beta)}{(1-\beta)})^{0.5} λ'(0)...

Hello everyone, I have read about the theoretical values of the Z boson decay partial width and how well they agreed with experiment. However there is something I do not quite understand: since these theoretical calculations were performed with the hypothesis that the masses of the decay...

Homework Statement Negative pion with kinetic energy 100 Mev decays to electron and antineutron. What is the kinetic energy of electron , which will move in the same direction as pion did?Homework Equations ##p^{\mu }=(\frac{E}{c},\vec{p})## ##E=T+mc^2=\sqrt{p^2c^2+m^2c^4}##The Attempt at a...

Suppose that there is initially x(not) grams of Kool-Aid powder in a glass of water. After 1 minute there are 3 grams remaining and after 3 minutes there is only 1 gram remaining. Find x(not) and the amount of Kool-Aid powder remaining after 5 minutes… So, i set up 2 equations… 3=x(not)e^-k(1)...

Homework Statement A K_0 particle has a mass of 497.7 MeV/c^2. It decays into a -∏ and +∏, each having a mass of 139.6 MeV/c^2. Following the decay of the K_0, one of the pions is at rest in the laboratory. Determine the kinetic energy of the other pion after the decay and of the K_0 prior to...

Homework Statement An unstable particle of mass M = m1 + m2 decays into two particles of masses m1 and m2, releasing an amount of energy Q. Determine the kinetic energies of the two particles in the CM frame. Given that m1/m2 = 4, Q = 1 MeV, and that the unstable particle is moving in...

Thank you for taking the time to read my thread. I do not agree with the TA's correction of my quiz and would appreciate if someone could give it a look before I approach him about it. Homework Statement Cobalt-60 has a half-life of 5.24 years. How long would it take for a 100 mg sample of...

In David Griffiths' Introduction to Elemantary Particles book, Problem 1.8 makes me confused. It wants me to write possible decay modes of Ω¯. In the parentheses, there is an explanation.It says "The Ω¯ does in fact decay, but by the much slower weak interaction, which does not converse...

Physics Particle Decay Question (Cons. of Momentum??) Homework Statement An isotope of Polonium 210Po with mass 3.49x10^-25 kg can decay into an alpha-particle(He Nucleus) with mass of 6.64x10^-27 kg and an isotope of lead 206Pb with a mass of 3.42x10^-25. If the polonium decays at rest. and...

Under the Higgs in wiki it says "Another possibility is for the Higgs to split into a pair of massive gauge bosons. The most likely possibility is for the Higgs to decay into a pair of W bosons (the light blue line in the plot), which happens about 23.1% of the time for a Higgs boson with a mass...

About the pi0 meson: I have a vague understanding of the idea of quantum super-position giving the linear combination of uubar and ddbar, even though it is very hard to picture - if possible I would like to avoid going off onto a tangent about this... My question is: am I right in saying...

If I have a circuit with R = 1Ω L = 300μH V = 20V i0 = 5A I know that I can use the equation at the bottom of page 13 to calculate the current rise given any starting current and input voltage: i(t) = (V/R)[1-e-t/τ] + i0e-t/τ This is fine, and stops increasing at 20A as expected...

Homework Statement Question wants you to a) find the difference between Egamma and the excitation energy of the nucleus due to the fact that the nucleus recoils. (using approximation that Egamma is small relative to nucleus mass. other parts are simple if I can get a)Homework Equations...

Homework Statement t(s) = 1 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 N(counts) = 106 80 98 75 74 73 49 38 37 22 Consider a decaying radioactive source whose activity is measured at intervals of 15 seconds. the total counts during each period are given. What is...

Hi, When i studied gamma-decay i encountered a set of transition rules telling for each radiation type (E1,M1,E2,M2,...) which transitions where allowed. For instance: a gamma ray emmited by E2 changes the parity and I_{intial}=I_{final}+2. Where you must know how to add angular momentum...

Homework Statement If anyone could help me with this classical mechanics exercise I would be very grateful! The exercise is as follows: The muon (μ) is a particle with mass mμ=207me, with me being the electron mass. The pion (∏) has a mass of m∏=273me. The pion can decay into a muon...

The IceCube detector in the deep ice at the south pole has seen two instances of 1015 eV neutrinos. These are said to be the highest energy neutrinos so far seen. http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2013/09/storm-in-ice-cube.html What process could have launched such high energy neutrinos? It has...

Homework Statement How many oscillations occur before Mxy decays to approximately 1/3 of its initial value, for a Larmor frequency of 100 MHz and T2 of 100ms?Homework Equations I was learning about how NMR works and about transverse relaxation. According to what I learned, we can express...

Homework Statement A sample of Mo-101, initially pure at time zero, beta decays to Tc-101 which then beta decays to Ru-101 (stable). The half-lives of Mo-101 and Tc-101 are nearly the same and for this problem are assumed equal (14.4 min). After a decay period of one half-life how many atoms...

Proton Decay- What happens to the proton after "too many decays"? Let me start off by saying that I am not the brightest individual, but I am curious about things from time to time (hence my name and hence why I'm here). So please excuse my stupidity if it shows too much. Anyway, recently, I...

I'm new to laser technology and learning it from some lecture videos and a textbook "Optics & Lasers". When I came to the light amplifier part, I got stuck in understanding the difference between "rapid decay" and "metastable state" -- what I can recite now is that "rapid decay" cannot...

Homework Statement An accelerator produces a beam of Un that travels to a detector located 100m away. The particles travel with a velocity of .866c, so in the laboratory frame it takes the particles .385*10^-6 seconds to get to the detector. By the time the particles get to the detector, half...

Is there any thing that could, or any way to increase the atomic decay rate of already unstable elements, such as the radio active elements. magnetically or otherwise, even if the thought is only plausible or otherwise theory, I wouldn't mind hearing it. A thought accord to me, what if...

Hi: I am taking a radiochemistry class, and I am confused by beta plus decay. (1) p --> n + positron + electron-neutrino The mass of a proton is less than the mass of a neutron. In addition, the neutrino has mass as does the positron. (2) E = mc2 There must be come sort of...

In Muon decay, the decay width is: \Gamma\mu = hbar/\tau\mu = GF² / (192π³(hbar.c)6) . (m\muc²)5(1+\epsilon) It's this (m\muc²)5 that bothers me.. How do you decide the powers in other reactions? I know it has something to do with the degrees of freedom, but I don't know how.Also: what would...

Homework Statement Calculate following decay rate \frac{\Gamma(D_{0} \rightarrow K^{-} \pi^{+})}{\Gamma(D_{0} \rightarrow \pi^{+} \pi^{-})} Use the (Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa) CKM-matrix. Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution D^{0} = |cu\rangle , D^{+} = |cd\rangle ...

I am a chemical engineer and have little experience with complicated electrical properties. I was wondering if there was a way to calculate the rate at which the surface charge of a particle will dissipate when it comes in contact with an electrode of the opposite charge. For example a small...

Hi, I have a question regarding the possibilities of analyzing the activity of Ra-226 in a sample from a collected spectrum with HPGe detector, by studying the peaks of Bi-214? The most common energy peak for Ra-226 is the 186 keV with yield 3.6%, the difficulties of determining the...

Hello everybody, I am a first year and I have one more question. To what degree do electron contribute to nuclear decay? (Do electron which can 'spend' some time in the nucleus cause bigger decay?) Thanks in advance :)

I’m going to post this here even though this question straddles Chemistry and Physics. I think I know the answer but I’d like confirmation. Let's say I am measuring a property P that is decaying exponentially, but I am measuring it using two different test methods. Let’s call them method A...

Hello everybody, I am a first year physics student and I have a question about Nuclear Beta Minus Decay. I was thinking the other day, about a beta decay. After the nucleus is formed, the new atoms state is a positive ion with charge +1. If we think of the electron escaping from...

Hello everybody, I am a first year physics student and I have a question about the probability for 'heavy' nucleus to decay. I was thinking the other day, how can we know the probability for that nucleus to decay. Let's suppose that we have an alpha decay. Is the probability of the nucleus...

For the decay chain N1 -> N2 -> N3 -> ... -> Ni -> ... -> Nd, how can I find the amount of particles of Ni, n(Ni), at any point in time t, with a single equation where i can vary from 1 to d? I have already seen WIkipedia's suggestion on the Bateman equations but that method seems to collapse...

I'm studying the \tau \rightarrow \rho \; \nu_{\tau} decay. I'm asked to calculate the decay width, using a parameterization of the matrix element of the hadronic current. I actually find a matrix element of the form: \left<\rho |\; \bar{u} \gamma^{\mu} \left( 1-\gamma^{5} \right ) d \; |...

Im a uni student and a Phd student asked me in an alpha decay, the helium nuclei is bounded by the strong nuclear force, how do the alpha particle overcome such a strong force and shoot out? And he told me it is because of quantum tunnelling. To my understanding quantum tunnelling is an effect...

\pi^0s decay to two photons via the EM interaction. The J^{PC} of the pion is 0^{-+} and of a \gamma is 1^{--}. \gamma\gamma therefore has J^{PC} = 0^{++}, 1^{-+}, 2^{++}. This does not match the pion, so how can this decay occur?

A rabbit population satisfies the logistic equation dy/dt=2*10^-7y(10^6-y) where t is the time measured in months. The population is suddenly reduced to 40%of its steady state size by myxomatosis. a) If the myxo' then has no effect how large is the population 8 months later? b)How long will it...