46.

Particle Physics and Cosmology

The search for the fundamental building blocks of all matters

For one time, atoms were the fundamental building blocks.
But atom was made of electrons and a nucleus (Thomson and Rutherford)

Nucleus was made of protons and neutrons. So at this time, the fundamental building
blocks were proton, neutron, and electron.

Starting from 1940’s, more than 300 new particles were discovered. Most of them
were unstable and short-lived (half-life between 10–6 and 10–23s).

There are patterns to these particles. More fundamental set of particles has been
found. We will discuss these issues in this chapter.

46.1 The fundamental forces in nature

1. Strong force: responsible for holding nucleons together. It is short-ranged (10 –

15
m). Let its relative strength be 1. The strength of all other forces will be
measured against this.

2. Electromagnetic force: responsible for holding atoms and molecules together. It is

long-ranged (strength decrease as 1/r2). Its relative strength is about 10–2.

3. Weak force: responsible for instability in certain nucleus or the conversion of a

neutron into a proton. It is short-ranged and its relative strength is 10–5.

4. Gravitational force: responsible for holding planets, stars, and galaxies together.
It is long-ranged (strength decrease as 1/r2). Its relative strength is about 10–39.

For each of these forces, there is a force field that is used to describe them. In modern
language, each force can be described as the exchange of field particles between the
two objects that the force acts on. So each force field has its own mediating field
particle (wave-particle duality).

Table 46.1

46.2 Positron and other antiparticles

Below is the extract from Serway.

“In the 1920s, Paul Dirac developed a relativistic quantum-mechanical description of
the electron that successfully explained the origin of the electron’s spin and its
magnetic moment. His theory had one major problem, however: its relativistic wave
equation required solutions corresponding to negative energy states, and if negative
energy states existed, an electron in a state of positive energy would be expected to
make a rapid transition to one of these states, emitting a photon in the process.
“Dirac circumvented this difficulty by postulating that all negative energy states are
filled. Electrons occupying these negative energy states are said to be in the Dirac sea
and are not directly observable because the Pauli exclusion principle does not allow
them to react to external forces. However, if one of these negative energy states is
vacant, leaving a hole in the sea of filled states, the hole can react to external forces
and therefore is observable. The way a hole reacts to external forces is similar to the
way an electron reacts to the same force except that the hole has a positive charge ––
it is the antiparticle to the electron.”

For every particle, an antiparticle exists.

Carl Anderson observed (discovered) positron in 1932. This marks the birth of the
concept of antiparticle. This concept has also been applied successfully to condensed
matter physics.

Figure 46.1

A positron-electron pair can be created by a photon when the photon passes close to a
heavy nucleus. The presence of the heavy nucleus is to allow conservation of
momentum (see Figure 46.2)

Since the mass of the positron-electron pair is 2  (0.511 MeV) = 1.022 MeV. The
necessary photon must have at least this energy. The following photo shows the
tracks of this reaction left by 300 MeV gamma ray striking a lead sheet.

Fig. 46.2 and 46.3

Practically every known elementary particle has a distinct anitparticle. Two

exceptions are photon and pion (o). They are their own antiparticle.
Antiproton is discovered in 1955, and antineutron shortly after.

46.3 Meson and the Beginning of Particle Physics

Strong force: responsible for holding nucleons together. That is referring to the force
between quarks inside the nucleons.

From now on, the force between two nucleons is called the nuclear force. Nuclear
force is a “secondary result” of the strong force. The field particle responsible for
mediating nuclear force is theoretical predicted by Hideki Yukawa in 1935. After a
false alarm, this field particle, pi-meson () or simply pion, is discovered in 1947.

It is called a meson because its rest mass is intermediate between an electron and a
nucleon. The pion comes in three varieties (, o, and +).  is the antiparticle of
+.

Pion Mass (MeV/c2) Antiparticle

o 135.0 o
 139.6 +
 + 139.6 

Pions are very unstable particles. For example, half-life of  is 2.6  108 s.

Using the idea of quantum mechanics (uncertainty principle, ), the range

(d) of a force and the mass (m) of the field-mediating particle are related by

d .

Putting in d = 10–15 m, the mass (m) of the field-mediating particle is estimated to be

100 MeV. This is of the same order of magnitude as the mass of pions. So scientists
are confident that the right particle has been found.

Just before pions are discovered, the particle muon () is discovered. This particle
takes part only in the weak and electromagnetic interaction only.

Mass: 106 MeV/c2

Charge:  and , antiparticle of each other
Half-life: 2.2 s

The interaction (force) between two particles can be represented in a simple diagram
called a Feynman diagram.

Figure 46.4

Figure 46.5

The field-mediating particles for weak force (W and Zo) were discovered in 1983 by
Carlo Rubbia. These are great triumph of the theory of weak force theory and particle
physics.

46.4 Classification of Particles

They are classified according to the interaction in which they take part.

Hadrons:
1. Participate in the strong interaction
2. Include two classes: Mesons and Baryons
3. All composed of more elementary units called quarks.
Mesons:
1. Zero or integral spin (0 or 1)
2. All decay into electrons, positrons, neutrinos and photons.
3. On the average lighter mass
Baryons:
1. Half-integral spin (1/2 or 3/2)
2. All decaying into a proton as the end product
3. On the average heavier mass
Leptons:
1. Do not participate in the strong interaction
2. All have spin 1/2
3. Appear to be truly elementary
4. At present there are only three pairs plus their antiparticles

(e, e), (, ), (, )

Table 46.2

46.5 Conservation Laws

Conservation of energy (mass)

Conservation of momentum
Conservation of angular momentum
Conservation of charge

Baryon Number (B)

B =1 for baryons, B = –1 for antibaryons

Experiments in particle reactions so far have supported the conservation of Baryon

number.

Some theory predicts that proton will decay. So far experimental evidences have not
been sufficient to prove this. Experiments have set a lower limit of the half-life at
1033 years.

Figure 46.6

Exercise:
Calculate the time for one proton to decay if there are 50000 ton of water if half-life
of proton is 1033 years.

Lepton Number (L)

Different Lepton number for electron, muon and tau.

Le = 1 for e and e, Le = 1 for their antiparticles (e+ and ebar).

L = 1 for  and , L = 1 for their antiparticles.

L = 1 for  and , L = 1 for their antiparticles.

Experiments in particle reactions so far have supported the conservation of all Lepton
numbers.

Some particles such as kaon (k) are called strange particle. A new quantum number
called strangeness (S) is defined. The law of conservation of strangeness was
proposed. It is now believed that this conservation law is not true for weak
interaction.

46. 7. Making particles and measuring their properties

Many particles are created in particle-particle collision. For example, two particles
collide and fused together to form a new particle. This particle decays rapidly into
two new particles. So in the experiment, we see two particles before and collision and
two different particles after the collision. The intermediate short-lived particles
cannot be seen.

How do we know there is such a particle and how to find its properties?

Answer: See the peak position and peak width on the production chart of these events
(production amount versus energy).

Figure 46.8.

See the ∆ resonance as an example. The energy width of the resonance is 115 MeV.
This allows us to find the half-life (t).

Uncertainty relation: .

Setting ∆E = 115 MeV, one can find ∆t. We will take ∆t as a good estimation the
half-life of the particle ∆. The result is that the half-life is 0.57 × 10 –23 s. If necessary,
relativistic time dilution formula would be used to find the half-life at the particle’s
rest frame.

The rest mass (1232 MeV) of the particle ∆ can also be read out from the peak
position.

46.8 Finding patterns in the particles

Gell-mann and Ne’eman discovered that group of similar particles can be arranged
together to form a pattern. Gell-mann called this the eightfold way.

Figure 46.9

Using this method, missing particles had been predicted and later found in
experiments. For example, Gell-mann correctly predicted the Ω – particle which was
found in experiment in 1964.

Figure 46.10

There is a clear pattern in the particles. The situation is a bit similar to that of the
periodic table. For example, you can predict missing elements.
46.9 Quarks (the original quark model)

A meson consists of 1 quark and 1 anti-quark.

A baryon consists of 3 quarks.

Figure 46.11

The original proposal by Gell-mann and George Zweig has 3 different quarks.

Up quark (u)
Down quark (d)
Strange quark (s)

Later scientists added more to the list.

Charm quark (c)

Top quark (t)
Bottom quark (d)

Quarks are fractionally charged particles.

Of course, each quark has its own anti-quarks.
And so up to this moment, scientists believe in 6 quarks and 6 leptons.

Table 46.3
Table 46.4 and 46.5

Then, it was proposed that each quarks process an addition property called colour
charge. The colour of each quark can be red, green, or blue. This idea is important
for explaining the existence of certain particles.

Fiqure 46.12

Quarks interact with each other through the strong interaction. The field particle is
called gluons. The theory of the interaction of quark is Quantum Chromodynamics
(QCD).

Under QCD, the interaction between two nucleons (proton or neutron) can be
regarded as the exchange of a meson, or the exchange of two gluons. These two
different pictures are consistent.

Figure 46.13

46.11 The standard model (unification of the fundamental forces)

Glashow, Salam, and Weinbery won the Nobel price in 1977 for developing a theory
that unify the weak and electromagnetic force. This is called the electroweak theory.
This theory postulates that this two force has the same form and same strength when
the energy of the particles involved is very high. The only different is the particle for
mediating the force (photon for electromagnetic force and W and Z particles for weak
force). The theory correctly predicted the mass of W and Z. Experiments confirmed
this prediction short after.

The success of the electroweak force invited scientists to unify QCD (strong force)
and electroweak theory (weak and electromagnetic force). The result is the standard
model. The standard model is good for explaining many results, but its predictions
have not been fully confirmed. For example, a very important assumption of the
model, the Higgs boson has not been found. To do that, we need huge accelerators.

Figure 46.14

There are also efforts to include gravitational force in the unification scheme. This
has been the dream of Einstein in his later years.

Below we show pictures of accelerators.

Photo on chapter cover,

Figure 46.15

46.12 The cosmic connection

The Big Band theory says that the whole universe is formed in a single explosion.
During each stage of the explosion, the universe cooled down gradually.

Time Temperature (K)

10–43 s 1032
10–35 s 1029
700 000 yrs 3000
At present (6  109 yrs) 2.7

When the energy of particle involved in very high, all 4 forces are unified (same form,
same strength). As the temperature dropped, first gravitational force separated form
the other three forces. Later, strong force separated. Last of all, weak and
electromagnetic force separated. So the study of the Big Bang theory is connected to
the study of particle physics. Big Bang theory and cosmology provide the
experimental testing ground for particle physics.

Figure 46.16

The temperature (2.7 K) of the present universe has been fully measured / confirmed
by experiment.

Figure 46.17 and 46.18.

Other evidence for an Expanding Universe

Experiments show that “all stars are moving away from earth. Stars that are further
away move faster. The speed v at which stars are receding from the earth increases in
directly proportion to their distance R from us.”
 v = HR.

H  17  103 m/(s-ly)

This is called Hubble’s law.

Figure 46.19

The above can be re-interpreted as the following. All stars are moving away from
each other. The speed v at which stars are receding from each other increases in
directly proportion to their distance R apart.

Will the Universe Expand Forever?

Data is not quite accurate enough to decide. It may be either way. Further
measurement is needed.

Figure 46.20
Figure 46.21

Missing mass in the Universe

Scientists have problem finding all the mass in the universe in order to explain the
present expansion of the universe. 90% of mass is still missing.

The discrepancy may be accounted for by the rest mass of the neutrino. There are still
a lot of questions, a lot of work remained to be done. Particle physics and cosmology
are active and exciting fields of research in Physics.