Particle Physics (Option 1)

LilMissCiara

My teacher covered this chapter in 2 days. I happened to be out of the country for those 2 days!

I have started going through the section myself. Making notes etc but what I know and what is in my teachers notes doesn't seem like much!

What should I know in this chapter?

I know:
Cockcroft and Walton
Accelerators
Particles and Antiparticles (Hadrons and Leptons etc)
Quarks and Antiquarks
Fundamental Forces
Radiation

ShonyBoulders

I'm not covering this particular part of Physics myself, but when I'm revising I generally just write out each definition, and note + understand all the concepts from the chapter, as well as any tables/diagrams/demonstrations that I think are important. And don't forget the various formulae and their related exercises!

noddy78779

LilMissCiara wrote: »

My teacher covered this chapter in 2 days. I happened to be out of the country for those 2 days!

I have started going through the section myself. Making notes etc but what I know and what is in my teachers notes doesn't seem like much!

What should I know in this chapter?

I know:
Cockcroft and Walton
Accelerators
Particles and Antiparticles (Hadrons and Leptons etc)
Quarks and Antiquarks
Fundamental Forces
Radiation

All the above in depth. Knowing how pair annihalation and pair production occur, why/how they occur etc.
Know how to do the calculations for reactions and know the formulas for these reactions eg waltons exp.
Other than that just do your best to UNDERSTAND the chapter and hopefully u shud be sorted.
Hope that helped!

Fad

During my leaving cert, I had the question 'why are two particles produced during a certain collision', something along those lines.

Fad's leaving cert physics exam wrote:

I'm not going to bore you with the hairy details, lets just say it's magic.

Still came out with a C1 >_>

Moral of the story, learn Particle Physics, it's easy and obscenely interesting, just don't leave it until the night before the exam >_<

jumpguy

Learn particle physics (which is easy enough to do) and then answer as much exam questions as you possibly can on it and correct them yourself. It's usually an easy question if well prepared. You need to know your nuclear physics too. And the importance of the neutrino.

Also, get used to converting unified atomic mass units to kilograms, as all the masses of the nuclides in the log tables are given in U (unified atomic mass units).

clartharlear

Syllabus:


1. Conservation of
energy and
momentum in
nuclear reactions
Radioactive decay resulting in two particles.
If momentum is not conserved, a third particle (neutrino) must be present.


2. Acceleration of
protons
Cockcroft and Walton –
Proton energy approximately 1 MeV: Outline of experiment.


3. Converting mass
into other forms of
energy
“Splitting the nucleus”

H + Li → He + He + Q
1 MeV 17.3 MeV
Note energy gain.
Consistent with E = mc 2


4. Converting other
forms of energy
into mass
Reference to circular accelerators
progressively increasing energy
available:
proton-proton collisions
p + p + energy → p + p + additional particles.


5. Fundamental forces of nature
Strong nuclear force:
Force binding nucleus, short range.
Weak nuclear force:
Force between particles that are not subject to the strong force, short range.
Electromagnetic force:
Force between charged particles, inverse square law.
Gravitational force: inverse square law.


6. Families of
particles
Mass of particles comes from
energy of the reactions –
m = E/c2
The larger the energy the greater the variety of particles. These particles are called “particle zoo”.
Leptons: indivisible point objects, not subject to strong force, e.g. electron, positron, and neutrino.
Baryons: subject to all forces, e.g. protons, neutrons, and heavier particles.
Mesons: subject to all forces, mass between electron and proton.


7. Anti-matter
e+ positron, e– electron.
Each particle has its own anti-particle.
Pair production: two particles produced from energy.
γ rays → e+ + e– conserve charge, momentum.
Annihilation: Two γ rays from annihilation of particles.
e+ + e– → 2hf (γ rays) conserve charge, momentum.


8. Quark model
Quark: fundamental building block of baryons and mesons.
Six quarks – called up, down, strange, charmed, top, and bottom.
Charges: u+2/3 , d-1/3 , s-1/3
Anti-quark has opposite charge to quark and same mass.
Baryons composed of three quarks: p = uud, n = udd, other baryons any three quarks.
Mesons composed of any quark and an anti-quark.

NB: e=mc^2 calculations for accelerators, production, annihilation, and nature and charge of a particle given a combination of quarks and vice versa