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The neutrino [a] was postulated first by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain how beta decay could conserve energy, momentum, and angular momentum ().In contrast to Niels Bohr, who proposed a statistical version of the conservation laws to explain the observed continuous energy spectra in beta decay, Pauli hypothesized an undetected particle that he called a "neutron", using the same -on ending ...
Muon decay almost always produces at least three particles, which must include an electron of the same charge as the muon and two types of neutrinos. Like all elementary particles, the muon has a corresponding antiparticle of opposite charge (+1 e ) but equal mass and spin: the antimuon (also called a positive muon ).
Its most noticeable effect is due to its first unique feature: The charged weak interaction causes flavour change. For example, a neutron is heavier than a proton (its partner nucleon) and can decay into a proton by changing the flavour (type) of one of its two down quarks to an up quark.
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] They vary greatly in size or quantity, from subatomic particles like the electron , to microscopic particles like atoms and molecules ...
According to the Standard Model of particle physics, a subatomic particle can be either a composite particle, which is composed of other particles (for example, a baryon, like a proton or a neutron, composed of three quarks; or a meson, composed of two quarks), or an elementary particle, which is not composed of other particles (for example ...
The more general description of matter waves corresponding to a single particle type (e.g. a single electron or neutron only) would have a form similar to = (,) (() /) where now there is an additional spatial term (,) in the front, and the energy has been written more generally as a function of the wave vector. The various terms given ...
The exchange or sharing of the electrons between two or more atoms is the main cause of chemical bonding. [17] In 1838, British natural philosopher Richard Laming first hypothesized the concept of an indivisible quantity of electric charge to explain the chemical properties of atoms. [3]
Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay. The weak force is the mechanism that is responsible for beta decay, while the other two are governed by the electromagnetic and nuclear forces. [1] Radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms.