What is the energy of a muon?
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What is the energy of a muon?
The mean energy of muons reaching sea level is about 4 GeV. Muons, being charged particles, interact with matter by ionizing it. The loss of energy by muons passing throught he atmosphere is proportional to the amout of matter they traverse.
What is muon decay?
The muon decay is a radioactive process which follows the usual exponential law for the probability of survival for a given time t. Be sure that you understand the basis for this law. The goal of the experiment is to measure the muon lifetime which is roughly 2 µs.
What particles does a muon decay into?
Muons decay predominantly into an electron 1 and a pair of neutrinos, μ + → e + ν ¯ μ ν e , with photons possibly irradiated by one of the charged particles involved in the process.
Do muons have energy?
Indeed most of the cosmic muons have a high energy and travel at speeds close to 300 000 km / second the speed of light in vacuum. A 1 GeV muon (1000 MeV) would travel an average 6 km 87 in the atmosphere; a 10 GeV muon 63 km.
How do you find the kinetic energy of a muon?
The muon momentum must be calculated with p = γmv, or pc = γ(m0c2)(v/c), or p[MeV/c] = γERβ[MeV]/c, which is p[MeV/c] = 4.26 × 938[MeV] × 0.972/c = 3883 MeV/c. You can check that E2 = (pc)2 + (m0c2)2, so that 40002 = 38832 + 9382, but they haven’t seen this formula since last year.
How do muons lose energy?
Muons loose their energy in matter mainly via electromagnetic processes: ionization, bremsstrahlung and direct pair production.
What does a muon neutrino decay into?
A common example is when the muon decays into an electron, an electron antineutrino, and a muon neutrino (μ → e + ¯νe + νμ). Muons are unstable and decay into their lighter counterparts, electrons, in about 2.2 microseconds.
What is the half life of a muon?
1.56 μs
Muons are unstable sub-atomic particles, and in simplest terms can be thought as being identical to electrons except that they have 206.7 times as much mass. They have a half-life of 1.56 μs (not to be confused with their mean lifetime of 2.2 μs).
Can a muon decay into a positron?
Muon. The muon is a lepton which decays to form an electron or positron.
Why do muons decay?
Muon decay Muons are unstable elementary particles and are heavier than electrons and neutrinos but lighter than all other matter particles. They decay via the weak interaction.
Is kinetic energy conserved in particle decay?
The decay of a particle is a relativistic problem. In relativistic “collisions” energy and momentum are always conserved. The γ-ray will have its maximum possible energy if after the disintegration the two particles have no relative kinetic energy.
Is kinetic energy conserved in alpha decay?
The parent nucleus decays to an alpha and a daughter nucleus and the difference in energy E is converted to kinetic energy of the two. However momentum is also conserved so they have equal and opposite momentum, meaning that the energy of the alpha is completely specified (non-relativistically, p22mα+p22Mdaughter=E).
What is the half life of muon?
2.2 μs
What is special about the muon?
Muons have the same negative charge as electrons but 200 times the mass. They are made when high-energy particles called cosmic rays slam into atoms in Earth’s atmosphere. Travelling at close to the speed of light, muons shower Earth from all angles.
Can a muon decay into a pion?
decaying after a much shorter lifetime of 85 attoseconds (8.5×10−17 seconds). Charged pions most often decay into muons and muon neutrinos, while neutral pions generally decay into gamma rays….Pion.
| The quark structure of the positively charged pion. | |
|---|---|
| Composition | π + : u d π 0 : u u or d d π − : d u |
| Family | Mesons |
How do you find muon on Lifetime?
Temperature and density variations affect the interaction of cosmic ray particles and air molecules in the atmosphere. Here G is the Fermi constant and mµ is the mass of the muon which is roughly equal to 106me. The value of G is 1.136 × 10-5 GeV-2. The lifetime is then given by τ = h/Γ [4].
Are muons relativistic?
Muons travel at relativistic speeds and are unstable particles with a mean lifetime at rest T0 ~ 2.2 µs. At the relativistic speeds the muons experience time dilation. This dilation allows them to reach the Earth’s surface before they decay.
Why does a muon decay into electron?
Because charge must be conserved, one of the products of muon decay is always an electron of the same charge as the muon (a positron if it is a positive muon). Thus all muons decay to at least an electron, and two neutrinos.
Can a muon decay into an electron only?
Muons may only decay to electrons -the only particles lighter than muons which carry the same electric charge- and they do so by means of the exchange of a W boson, the carrier of the electroweak charged-current interaction.
How is energy conserved during decay?
