Kaon

What is the strangeness of K?

Kaon

Composition K + : u s K 0 : d s K − : s u
Mean lifetime K ± : (1.2380±0.0020)×10−8 s K S: (8.954±0.004)×10−11 s K L: (5.116±0.021)×10−8 s
Electric charge K ± : ±1 e K 0 : 0 e
Spin 0
Strangeness K + , K 0 : +1 K − , K 0 : -1

What does K decay into?

K mesons or kaons are unstable and can decay in a number of ways. In one important but very rare decay, a positive kaon – a bound state of an up quark and a strange antiquark — decays into a positive pion plus a neutrino and an antineutrino.

Is kaon made of quarks?

Kaons are a specific type of meson (mesons are particles made of one quark and one antiquark). What makes kaons unique is that they are made of one up quark or down quark, and one strange quark. (One of the two quarks that make of a kaon must be an antiquark, and the other must be normal matter.

Are pions strange?

Since the strange numbers of the pion and proton are both zero and the kaon has a strangeness of +1, we know that the lambda particle’s strangeness is -1. “It is found that strangeness is conserved in all processes mediated by the strong and electromagnetic interactions.”(Beiser p.

Is muon a lepton?

The muon is part of the lepton group. Leptons are a type of fundamental particle. This means they are not made of even smaller pieces of matter. Like other leptons, the muon is affected by only three of the four fundamental forces in the universe.

What is isospin in nuclear physics?

In nuclear physics and particle physics, isospin (I) is a quantum number related to the up- and down quark content of the particle. More specifically, isospin symmetry is a subset of the flavour symmetry seen more broadly in the interactions of baryons and mesons.

Is kaon a hadron?

Mesons are hadrons that do not decay into protons, such as: pions and kaons.

What is the charge of a kaon?

zero electric charge
The kaon (also called the K0 meson), discovered in 1947, is produced in high-energy collisions between nuclei and other particles. It has zero electric charge, and its mass is about one-half the mass of the proton.

What is the antiparticle of a kaon?

K- meson
The antiparticle of the positive Kaon is the K- meson. Its quark structure is an anti up and a strange quark. When doing a question like this in an exam the most difficult part is determining the quark structure.

Why do pions decay to muons?

The heavier muon has a larger left-handed component, and its decay is less suppressed. Hence, pions usually decay into muons, although they have less phase space available.

How are pions created?

A pion-producing shot begins when laser pulses are fired into a cell containing helium gas. The resulting ionization and wakefield acceleration generate a beam of 1 GeV electrons, which passes through a 1.5-cm-thick lead target to produce additional electrons, positrons, and gamma rays.

Is photon a lepton?

A photon is massless, has no electric charge, and is a stable particle. In a vacuum, a photon has three possible polarization states. The photon is the gauge boson for electromagnetism, and therefore all other quantum numbers of the photon (such as lepton number, baryon number, and flavour quantum numbers) are zero.

What is a kaon?

Basic theory Kaons are mesons formed by a strange (or anti-strange) quark and an up or down quark. They have strangeness of ± 1. Both charged kaons (K+, K-) and neutral kaons (K0, K0) exist.

What is the strangeness of K0 and K0 kaons?

They have strangeness of ± 1. Both charged kaons (K+, K-) and neutral kaons (K0, K0) exist. These neutral kaons are distinguished by their strangeness: S(K0)=1, S(K0)=-1. The neutral kaons offer a very interesting subject for studying. During particle – antiparticle oscillation, K0-> K0, and K0-> K0.

What is the quark structure of the neutral kaon (K0)?

Quark structure of the neutral kaon (K 0 ). are charge conjugates of the ones above. Two different decays were found for charged strange mesons: The intrinsic parity of a pion is P = −1, and parity is a multiplicative quantum number. Therefore, the two final states have different parity (P = +1 and P = −1, respectively).

What is the lifetime of a neutral kaon?

L (“K-long”), decays primarily into three pions, and has a mean lifetime of 5.18 × 10−8 s. The short -lived neutral kaon is called the