PH 122 Chapter Notes - Chapter 44: Tau Neutrino, Lepton Number, Satyendra Nath Bose
Document Summary
Just by the time that quantum physics seemed to ex- plain most questions about the atomic world, a new wave of particle discoveries started. Most of these particles (muon, pion, kaon, sigma) ex- ist only for a few moments before transforming into other particles following the same laws that govern nuclei decay. Consider that the number of any one type of particle present in a sample is n0 at time t = 0. Then the re- maining number of particles in the sample n at time t is: N = n0e t and the rate of decay r is. R = r0e t for an initial rate of decay r0. In the same way, the half-life of the particle is. Some of these particles have life spans so short - in the 10 23 to 10 6 seconds - that is impossible to ob- serve them directly.
