Beta Decay

By -

   Table of contents 

BETA DECAY


View my previous article here -

View the next article here -

-----------------------------------------

(In this article, and in several others, u means up quark and d means down quark. Similarly, u with a bar on top means anti-up quark and d with a bar on top means anti-down quark.)

A particular type of radioactivity is known as beta-decay, which occurs in three forms known as beta-minus decay, beta-plus decay and electron capture. In each form, protons convert into neutrons, or vice-versa. 

For instance, in beta-minus decay, one of the neutrons in a nucleus is converted into a proton with the emission of an electron and an electron antineutrino. This process may be written as:




As a neutron has the quark composition (udd) and a proton has the quark composition (uud), at the level of individual quarks, a beta-minus decay must involve a down quark converting into an up quark as follows:




This quark conversion, therefore, lies at the heart of all beta-minus decay processes. A quick check confirms that an electric charge is conserved in this process. The charge on the left-hand side of the equation is -(1/3) e, while the sum of the charges of the particles on the right-hand side is +(2/3) e - e + 0 = -(1/3) e also.

In beta-plus decay, a proton is converted into a neutron with the emission of a positron and an electron neutrino:




In electron capture, a proton is converted into a neutron when it captures an electron, and subsequently emits an electron neutrino:

 

 



-----------------------------------------

View the next article here -

View my previous article here -

View more structured order of the articles here -

-----------------------------------------

Feel free to ask/share anything additional in the comments section!

I am still learning Particle physics, but will try my best to answer your questions :)

Kindly let me know about any error here.

You can also share anything additional for this article here.

View my previous article here -

View the next article here -

View more structured order of the articles here -

See more articles here -

Solve brain teasers! View my other blog here-

With Warm Wishes,
Lavanya


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What are Quarks, Leptons and Bosons?

By -
    Table of contents  WHAT ARE  QUARKS, LEPTONS  AND  BOSONS? View my previous article here - How were Neutrinos Discovered? View the next article here - The Fundamental Forces ----------------------------------------- Here is a brief overview of what are quarks, leptons and bosons - families of particles that make up the Standard Model! (Based on what has been discussed so far).  * ADDITIONAL * -  A fermion is any particle that has an odd half-integer (like 1/2, 3/2, and so forth) spin.  Quarks  and  leptons , as well as most composite particles, like  protons  and  neutrons , are fermions. QUARKS: Quarks are subatomic particles that are found in protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. There are 6 quarks .  Up quark and Down quark belong to the first generation. Charm quark and Strange quark belong to the second generation. Top quark and Bottom quark belong to the third generation. The second and thi...
Read more

Particle Physics - Introduction

By -
Table of contents   PARTICLE PHYSICS - INTRODUCTION View the next article here - More on Particle Physics and Why it matters? ----------------------------------------- What is Particle physics? Let me give a hint by telling you what particles are? Everything in our universe is made up of extremely small components known as particles. Now did you get it? Particle Physics is nothing but the study of how our universe was made and what our universe is constituted of. To prove their existence and see how they behave, scientists observe them until the particles leave a sign. Often, instead of waiting for the particles to leave a sign, they make particles by colliding known particles. How? Well, the accelerators speed up the known particles almost to the speed of light. The particles collide and release massive energy, which results in the creation of new particles. This is why Particle physics is also known as High Energy Physics . At present, there are 17 particles that have been ident...
Read more

Gluons

By -
Image
    Table of contents  GLUONS View my previous article here - Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics and Quantum Chromodynamics View the next article here - Introduction to Feynman Diagrams ----------------------------------------- Just like how electrons carry the electric charge, the quarks also carry the electric charge, but this electric charge is weaker in quarks. Quarks additionally carry a coloured charge , as discussed in the previous article . This coloured charge generates a gluon force field. An accelerating quark creates a vibrating ripple in the gluon field, which is known as gluons. Just like how a photon can create an electron and positron (anti-electron) pair - energetic gluon can create a quark and antiquark pair - While the electromagnetic charge has only one version, the colour charge has 3. But the colour charge never shows up in the hadron quark combinations. (Keep reading to find out about hadrons.) This led to the idea that the three colour charges...
Read more