Particle Physics For All

      Table of contents  BETA DECAY View my previous article here - Strong Interaction View the next article here - Weak Interaction ----------------------------------------- (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...