Disintegrating μ \mu

A pion at rest decays into a muon and a neutrino ( π μ + ν μ ) ( \pi^- \rightarrow \mu^- + \overline{\nu_\mu} ) . If the muon's lifetime on its rest frame is τ , \tau, it will move a distance

A B m π 2 m μ 2 m π m μ c τ \frac{A}{B} \cdot \frac{m_\pi^2 - m_\mu^2}{m_\pi m_\mu} c \tau

before disintegrating, where A A and B B are the lowest possible natural numbers. Find A B AB .


The answer is 2.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Ivander Jonathan
Dec 19, 2018

Let us utilise the momentum four-vector equation for the collision. p π = ( m π c , 0 , 0 , 0 ) \vec{p_\pi}=\left(m_\pi c,0,0,0\right) , p μ = ( m c , γ μ m μ v , 0 , 0 ) \vec{p_\mu}=\left(mc,\gamma_\mu m_\mu v,0,0\right) , and p ν = ( m ν c , γ ν m ν , 0 , 0 ) \vec{p_\nu}=\left(m_\nu c,\gamma_\nu m_\nu,0,0\right) . Now the conservation law gives p π p μ = p ν \vec{p_\pi}-\vec{p_\mu}=\vec{p_\nu} Squaring both sides, p π 2 + p μ 2 2 p π p μ = p ν 2 {p_\pi}^2+{p_\mu}^2-2\vec{p_\pi}\cdot\vec{p_\mu}={p_\nu}^2 Solving this by plugging the initial values I had stated gives m π 2 + m μ 2 2 γ μ m π m μ = m ν 2 m_\pi^2+m_\mu^2-2\gamma_\mu m_\pi m_\mu =m_\nu^2 But the rest mass of the neutrino is very small compared to others, and can be neglected. Yielding: γ μ = m π 2 + m μ 2 2 m π m μ \gamma_\mu=\frac{{m_\pi}^2+{m_\mu}^2}{2m_\pi m_\mu} The distance covered by the muon in the frame of the earth is L = v τ γ μ L=v\tau \gamma_\mu , with v = c 1 1 / γ μ 2 v=c\sqrt{1-1/\gamma^2_\mu} , thus giving L = c τ γ μ 2 1 = 1 2 m π 2 + m μ 2 m π m μ L=c\tau\sqrt{\gamma^2_\mu-1}=\frac{1}{2}\cdot\frac{m_\pi^2+m_\mu^2}{m_\pi m_\mu} Therefore A B = 2 AB=2

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...