Undergrad How is the weak force related to a change in velocity?

[SamRoss]

TL;DR

Seeking intuitive understanding of how the weak force "pushes" particles.

Hi everyone,

The four fundamental forces are gravity (I understand that G.R. does not look upon gravity as a force but I'm not worried about that here), the Lorentz force, the weak force, and the strong force. I'm familiar with the inverse square law for gravitation and the Lorentz force F=q(E+vxB). I also have the dimmest understanding of how the strong force is related to a change in motion (protons in the nucleus of an atom would want to move away from each other due to the Lorentz force so there must be another force, called the strong force, which changes this desired motion and pushes them back toward each other; that's as far as my understanding goes). However, whenever I search for some explanation of the weak force, I only see how it is related to radioactive decay and I don't see clearly how this can be categorized as a "change in motion" which is what a force is supposed to do. Any help here would be appreciated. Also, similar to how we now think of a=GM/r^2 as an approximation of the motion predicted by G.R., are there analogous approximations of both the strong and weak forces that do not require a high level of understanding of Q.E.D and Q.C.D?

 

[Vanadium 50]

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/weak-force.250100/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-the-weak-force-really-a-force.629269/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-is-the-weak-force-a-force.994498/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/weak-interaction-is-it-a-force.950320/

 

[PeroK]

Summary:: Seeking intuitive understanding of how the weak force "pushes" particles.

Hi everyone,

decay and I don't see clearly how this can be categorized as a "change in motion" which is what a force is supposed to do. Any help here would be appreciated.

You have two options:

1) Call it the weak interaction;

2) Extent your notion of force to encompass the weak interaction.

 

[SamRoss]

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/weak-force.250100/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-the-weak-force-really-a-force.629269/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-is-the-weak-force-a-force.994498/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/weak-interaction-is-it-a-force.950320/

You have two options:

1) Call it the weak interaction;

2) Extent your notion of force to encompass the weak interaction.

Okay, so we're extending our idea of what we call a "force" to include not only something that results in acceleration but also something that results in particles decaying into other particles. The reason for this extension is that both acceleration and decay are the result of carrier particles (W and Z bosons for decay, photons for electromagnetism, gluons for the strong force, and gravitons for gravity). Is that right?

 

[PeroK]

Okay, so we're extending our idea of what we call a "force" to include not only something that results in acceleration but also something that results in particles decaying into other particles.

Newton's second law, $F = ma$, is a classical concept. There's no concept of this in QM, as such. Instead, it emerges from the interaction of many quantum particles. Instead, QM tends to predict scattering cross-sections.

Coulomb's law breaks down, for example, at high energies for quantum particles.