INTRODUCTION TO SUBATOMIC PHYSICS

Chary Rangacharyulu
Department of Physics and Engineering Physics
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, SK
Canada, S7N5E2
Chary.r@usask.ca
and
Trang Hoang
Department of Nuclear Physics Nuclear Engineering
University of Science
Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
htktrang@hcmus.edu.vn

December 2013

Table of Contents
Chapter 1.

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 3

Chapter 2.

Rudiments of Nuclear Physics ....................................................................................................................... 7

2.1

Energetics .................................................................................................................................................................. 7

2.2

Separation energies.................................................................................................................................................... 8

2.3

Time-dilation .............................................................................................................................................................. 9

2.4

Reduced Transition Probabilities ............................................................................................................................ 10

2.5

Cross section ............................................................................................................................................................ 11

2.6

Basic properties of nuclei and particles ................................................................................................................... 13

2.7

Parity ....................................................................................................................................................................... 14

2.8

Magnetic dipole moment .......................................................................................................................................... 18

2.9

Electric Quadrupole Moments ................................................................................................................................. 20

Chapter 3.

Identical Particles ......................................................................................................................................... 24

Chapter 4.

Isospin ............................................................................................................................................................ 27

Chapter 5.

Isospin Formalism of Two nucleon systems ............................................................................................... 29

Chapter 6.

Hadron Structures ........................................................................................................................................ 33

Chapter 7.

Yukawa's theory of Meson Exchange Forces ............................................................................................. 40

Chapter 8.

Weak Interactions ........................................................................................................................................ 41

Chapter 9.

CP Violation .................................................................................................................................................. 49

Chapter 10.

Electro-Weak Unification........................................................................................................................ 56

Chapter 1.

Introduction

This course aims to make you appreciate a) the breadth b) the fascination c) the challenges and d)
limitations of the subatomic physics research. We have to develop the background information, realize
the inter-connections of various sub-disciplines and bring the subject to a level where we can relate to
what is happening in the current-day research in this area. While this may sound like a survey course,
we want to maintain some rigour so that you develop some analytical reasoning and apply it to
problems at hand.
The main theme of this course is structures and symmetries in sub-atomic world. People are fascinated
by the symmetries and their implications to physics. People are determined to be able to say what the
ultimate building blocks of matter are. The reductionist principle of Democritus is the driving force for
such an ambition. While I am convinced that the developments of the 20th century particle physics and
quark-model, in particular, tend to prove that reductionism failed here, we will not elaborate on that.
We will pursue the logic, both mathematical and physics, to convey the present understandings and
challenges of the subatomic physics community.
We may say that subatomic physics began with Thomsons discovery of electron in 1897, even though
Becquerels discovery of radioactivity preceded by one year (1896). It was a few years before
Becquerel and others realized that radioactivity was nuclear transmutations. By 1903, the alpha
particles were recognized to be doubly charged He-atoms. The discovery or identification of protons
was not so direct. In 1886, Goldstein published a paper describing his observation of Canal rays in
addition to the Cathode rays. It led to dedicated experiments by Wilhelm Wien (fame: Wiens
displacement law) and Sir John Joseph Thomson (discovery of electron) among others. It is fair to say
that nearly 20 years passed before people accepted the positive hydrogen ions as one of the basic
constituents of nuclei. Seemingly, Rutherford coined the name proton to this entity in 1919. It is
amusing to note that these observations revive the Prouts hypothesis, as early as in 1815, that all
atoms were built of hypothetical protyle atoms, which he tried to identify with hydrogen atom.
It is well known that Rutherfords scattering experiment, with alphas bouncing off materials, led to the
idea that the entire mass and positive charge of an atom is confined to a very small volume at the
center and it is called atomic nucleus, with charge Ze, where Z is the atomic number, indicating the
location of the chemical element in the Mendeleev table. It turns out that the masses of almost all
atomic nuclei are larger than Z times the mass of proton and thus protons cannot be the sole inhabitants
of atomic nuclei. As electrons are very light compared to protons, their contribution to atomic masses
is negligible and it was simplest to assume that an atomic nucleus of mass number A and atomic
number Z, was made up of A number of protons and (A-Z) electrons, confined to a small volume at the
center of chemical atoms, which has extra Z electrons outside the nuclear volume to render it
electrically neutral.
At around 1920, Rutherford speculated that, at least, some protons and electrons in the nuclear volume
could come very close and be bound together and behave as electrically neutral entities. If they so form
and if they are ejected from nucleus, they can fly around without much interaction to other objects in
the surrounding medium. A search ensued and it was in 1932 that Chadwick discovered neutron. This
neutron, while it is very similar to what Rutherford suggested in terms of mass and charge of the
particle, is an entirely different physical entity. In 1932, one recognized that the neutron cannot simply
be a composite of proton and electron, since it does not satisfy the spin-statistics arguments. A
composite object of a proton and an electron would be a Boson of integer spin, while the neutron is a
3

Fermion of half-integer spin. Thus neutron and proton are of same stature in nuclear systems, while the
neutral entity of Rutherford would have been very different from proton.
There were, at least, two arguments against the presence of electrons in nuclei.
1. The spin-statistics: In electron-proton model, a nucleus is made up of A protons and (A-Z)
electrons, i.e. (2A-Z) Fermions. Thus a nucleus of odd-Z, regardless of the mass number A,
will consist of odd number of Fermions and it, thus, would be half-integer spin. However, it
was well established that the spin of even-mass nuclei, for all values of Z, is an integer, in
contradiction to the electron-proton model prediction.
2. Nuclear dimensions are of the order of a few femto meters. For electrons to be confined in such
small volumes, the kinetic energy will be at least
, with energy
expressed in MeV units and the wavelength in femto meters. Thus the kinetic energies are
about a few tens of MeV for nuclear dimensions. The maximum kinetic energies of electrons
are about 3 MeV or less. This observation is incompatible with electron-proton model.
This period also saw a few other developments of interest to nuclear and particle physicists. First,
Diracs theory predicted the existence of anti-particles. Positron, the antiparticle of electron, was
discovered lending credence to this theory.
It was well established that -particles (electrons) emitted in nuclear decays are not mono-energetic.

One may write the energy released in -decay

, where ,
and
are masses
of initial (parent) nucleus, final (daughter) nucleus and electron, respectively. It was found that
corresponded to the maximum kinetic energy of the emitted electron. The electron energy spectrum
shows a continuous distribution with intensity maximum lying at
and
corresponds very
closely to the end-point. The model which attempts to describe the beta decay involving atomic nuclei
and electrons (a two-body final state) will not satisfy simultaneous energy-momentum conservation
principles2. It fails to account for spin conservation too. To rescue the theory, Pauli postulated a
hypothetical fermion of spin
, devoid of electric charge and nearly zero mass (<< electron mass)
and it was called neutrino.
The understanding of nuclear decay processes poses its own problems. The radioactive elements are of
characteristic life-times, ranging from a few milli seconds to a billion years for and decays. This
feature is not understood by classical physical reasonings. Classically, if a final state is energetically
favored, the decay is instantaneous. There is no allowance for finite lifetimes. For quantum mechanical
reasoning, Gamow introduced the Coulomb barrier penetration as means to describe finite lifetimes of
-emitters. An energetic particle inside a nucleus bounces off the Coulomb barrier as it runs around
in the parent nucleus. The barrier penetration probability and thus lifetime of alpha emitting nucleus
are governed by the relative magnitudes of -particle energy and the barrier height.
1

For economy of notation, we frequently suppress powers of ' ' and

etc. Their presence is
understood. When numerical estimates are done, due care to magnitudes of the hidden physical
constants is warranted.
2

Niels Bohr was on the record of saying that the energy-momentum conservation principles so much
enshrined in classical physics, may not hold in microscopic world, after all. Pauli had a different
opinion.
4

A free neutron undergoes -decay as it changes into a proton, electron and anti-neutrino. This process
entails creation of particles. The lifetime is linked to the probability that such energy-matter conversion
can occur while satisfying all conservation principles. To describe this phenomenon, a new force viz.,
weak interaction was introduced. In stable nuclei, neutrons do not decay. A free proton cannot decay
to
, since it is energetically forbidden. However, radioactive nuclei, which emit
positrons, are known. These facts are understood as below:
) (
)
The -decay of a nucleus (
is governed by the energetics of the initial and
final states i.e., if the mass of (Z,A) is greater than the mass of (Z+1, A) plus an electron, the decay is
) (
)
possible, otherwise it is not possible. Also, a (
is possible if it is
energetically allowed. Neutrons and protons are the sole habitants of nuclei and they are given a
collective name nucleons. The notion of electrons as nuclear constituents was abandoned.
With neutrons and protons as nuclear constituents, the immediate question was: What binds them
together so strongly in such small volumes? The ratio of nuclear/atomic volumes are about
, and
binding energies of nuclei are about several hundred thousand times the atomic binding energies.
Clearly, electromagnetic interaction cannot be responsible. Coulomb force is repulsive between
protons. A strong attractive force, effective only at short distances, was assumed since this force does
not seem to extend to atomic distances. Heisenberg et al. were able to describe the chemical covalence
bonds as due to exchange of electrons between the ions, occurring over short distances. Yukawa
extended this idea to nuclear systems and calculated the mass of exchange particle operating over
distances of about a femto meter. It marked the beginning of meson exchange theories.
Initial searches for the meson presented an unexpected guest-muon, which is basically a heavy
unstable electron. It is a transitory particle, weighing 105 MeV/c2 (207 me) and its meanlife is 2 sec.
It is weakly interacting with the surrounding medium and it pours down from Heavens as Cosmic rays.
Meanwhile, there was progress in nuclear instrumentation. Cloud chamber, Geiger Muller counters,
Ionization chambers, and coincidence circuitry were developed, which were contributing to improved
measurements and more detailed physics information. Particle accelerators such as Cockroft-Walton,
Van de Graaff and cyclotron etc. were invented. These developments enabled nuclear physicists to
employ accelerated particles as projectiles on targets. Artificial transmutation and induced radioactivity
were discovered. The stage for artificial production of isotopes and systematic studies of nuclear
structure, reactions, and decays was set.
It is worth recognizing that nuclei are complex many-body systems where strong and electromagnetic
interactions play important roles. In nuclear systems, the weak interactions are important only for
decay processes. Thus, while these systems offer fertile grounds to test various interactions, they also
pose very difficult, if not insurmountable, problems to theoreticians. People have taken two distinct
approaches. One school of thought considers the nuclear forces to be a sum total of two-body
interactions. The attempt is then to determine nucleon-nucleon interactions for a wide range of
energies and hope to deduce them for interactions in complex nuclei. The other school of thought
considers this to be a hopeless task. For them, nuclear systems are made up of an average potential in
which a few valence nucleons moving would be responsible for the observable properties such as
excited levels, transition probabilities etc. Here again, two distinct approaches viz., shell model
inspired by the atomic structure models and collective modes where nucleons are considered as fluids
or phonon-excitations are employed. The phenomenological approaches have been more successful in
5

their descriptive power of nuclear systematics than those attempting to derive from the basic nucleonnucleon interactions, for reasons which we will discuss later.
Sometime in 1940s, a group of physicists separated from the nuclear physics community to pursue
particle physics. It was their hope that, by probing matter at higher and higher energies, one might
arrive at the fundamental constituents of matter and thorough understanding of basic interactions.
Here we have. We might realize our long cherished dream. However, things are more complicated than
that. Further probing at higher energies resulted in the discovery of more and more resonances which
are identified as mesons and baryons. The economy of building blocks was seemingly lost. Even in
1940s, there were attempts to describe all the particles in terms of minimum number of basic building
blocks to include normal matter and strange matter, as then discovered. One sorts these building blocks
into a) hadronic matter subject to strong interactions and b) leptons devoid of strong interactions.
It may not be an exaggeration to say that 1955 marks the beginning of a new era in particle physics, as
parity violation, a break down of symmetry conservation, was observed as suggested by the theory,
which itself was prompted by observations in particle physics (decays of strange mesons). 1964 marks
the breakdown of another symmetry known as CP (simultaneous operation of charge conjugation and
parity: particle
antiparticle and parity operation) and also the year when the quark hypothesis of
strongly interacting particles was put forward. As almost everyone knows, quark hypothesis has been
very successful in offering a description of the subatomic world. The pursuit still continues and there
are many open problems and challenges in the field.
Meanwhile, nuclear physics flourished in 1960, 70s and a bit in 1980s. Phenomenological structure
and interaction models as well as implications of quantum mechanical symmetries have been put
forward. While the conventional nuclear physics of 1950-70s has been in decline in the recent years,
nuclear physicists found reincarnation or new lease on life mostly in particle physics.
One might say that particle physics itself went through ups and downs. We might argue that the years
1955 and 1964 marks new beginnings of particle physics. For the first time, the validity of fundamental
symmetries was seriously questioned in the year 1955. The year 1964 marks a new beginning as
quarks (fractional charges) were proposed as basic constituents of hadronic matter. Currently, there are
three generations of quarks and also there are three generations of leptons. These structural
organizations accompanied by the 4-types of interactions which are mediated by exchange bosons was,
till very recently, considered as the STANDARD model. Several attempts to overthrow this model did
not succeed. However, the particle physics community seems convinced that it is just a matter of time
before the STANDARD model is superseded by a more basic theory. Now, we talk about physics
beyond Standard Model or new physics. Stay tuned.

Chapter 2.

Rudiments of Nuclear Physics

2.1 Energetics
A nucleus (A,Z) is made up of Z protons and N neutrons and in a stable nucleus, these particles are
confined to small volume. In nuclear physics, the mass number plays as important role as the atomic
number, since the properties of nuclei are very specific to both numbers. Nuclei with same Z and
different A are called isotopes. Nuclei with different Z and same A are called isobars. We may thus
refer to carbon isotopes (12C, 13C, 14C etc.) of those with carbon as the chemical element. We may refer
to an isobar system of specific mass. For example, 14C, 14N, 14O are three isobars of mass number 14.
A good estimate of the nuclear radius of mass number A is
. It is of interest to note
that the average space available for an individual nucleon inside a nucleus is nearly independent of the
mass number. As they are bound inside a nucleus, one has to supply energy to the system to free the
nucleons. We define binding energy of a nucleus B(A,Z) = M(A,Z) ZMH NMn in energy units3.
This energy is a negative quantity and it is equal in magnitude to the minimum amount of energy to be
supplied to break the nucleus into Z free protons and N free neutrons. In actual situations, it needs lot
more energy than this estimate to break the nucleus into free protons and neutrons.
At this time, it is instructive to look at the plot of binding energy/nucleon versus mass number.
The deuteron (

), an isotope of hydrogen is the lightest nucleus and it has lowest binding energy

(1.15 MeV per nucleon). Very quickly and almost monotonously B/A increases to a maximum value
of about 8.5 MeV near the mass number A~56, and then slowly decreases to about 7.5 MeV for
heavier nuclei (U, Th etc.). These systematics would provide a qualitative understanding as to why
heavy nuclei undergo fission to lighter masses, while one can gain energy release by the fusion of
lighter elements such as tritium etc. to heavier ones.

Many books use the opposite sign convention for binding energy, where they define
B(A,Z)= ZMH + NMn - M(A,Z). I prefer our sign convention because it is consistent with the
stabilities and Q-value definitions. If 'B' is positive, the free nucleon system has more energy than the
bound system and it is unstable against decay.
7

2.2 Separation energies

You might remember work function as the least energy required to liberate an electron from an atom.
In the same manner, we define separation energies for neutrons and protons. Neutron separation energy
(Sn) of AZX nucleus is
(2.1)
[ (
)
(
)
]
and the proton separation energy (Sp)
(2.2)
)
(
)
[ (
]
are the least energies required to free a neutron and proton from the nucleus X.
We can easily recognize that the stability of nuclei against a decay process is governed by the simple
relation that decay occurs if
, where
is the mass of the initial system and
is the sum of
4
masses of particles in the final state. For example , the condition that a nucleus of mass M(A,Z) is
energetically allowed to decay by emitting an electron or a positron to the neighboring isobar is given
)
(
)
by (
with (
) and (
) as the charges of daughter nuclei for the
and
emissions, respectively.
Remember that, here, we are referring to nuclear masses and not the atomic masses. One has to pay
attention to this fact, as one usually finds atomic mass tables. In case you use atomic tables, the
(
)
condition for
decay is that
(
) and for the positron emission,
(
)
(
)
(
)
. Also, when
(
), a nucleus may
capture an electron from the atomic orbits and transform to the daughter nucleus. This process, known
as electron capture decay, plays increasing roles in heavier nuclei since the atomic electrons are closer
to the nucleus.
These energy considerations may be extended to reactions, when projectiles are incident on target
nuclei which would result in either elastic or inelastic collisions, including nuclear transformations. In
the laboratory frame, the Q-value of the reaction for a process
, is given by
(
Clearly, the reaction may occur only if

(2.3)

is positive. Otherwise, it is energetically forbidden.

We can easily calculate the minimum kinetic energy (Tmin) required to render this reaction energetic
possible as
(2.4)

where is the projectile and is the stationary target in the laboratory.

4

When you are solving numerical problems for stabilities and Q-values, please make sure there are no
round-off errors. As the Q-values are very small (a few keV to a few MeV), while the masses of
participating nuclei are of GeV magnitudes, rounding off the numbers may lead to erroneous
conclusions.
8

Of course, one has to satisfy energy-momentum conservation principles simultaneously. For the
overall energetics, it is convenient to work in the center of mass system and employ four momentum
vectors.
A particle of mass and of kinetic energy and 3-momentum , is of total energy

and velocity

, the four-vector

(2.5)

| |
| |

) with

In two-particle collisions, we can calculate the center of mass energy and momentum as
[(

) ]

)]

(2.6)

where
, , and
are respectively, the mass, energy, momentum and velocity of the particle
one. Corresponding symbols for the particle-2 have same meanings. The is the angle between the
two colliding particles.
Of general interest is the laboratory frame where one particle is at rest (say, particle2). For conversion
from laboratory to center of mass, the velocity of CM frame ( ) is
(2.7)

The conversion from center of mass frame to the laboratory and vice versa are done easily through
Lorentz transformations. The particle with longitudinal momentum and energy will be found, in a
frame moving with a velocity F, to have energy and longitudinal momentum (
)
(

)( )

and the transverse momentum is same in both frames (

(2.8)

2.3 Time-dilation
We know that radioactive particles obey the exponential decay law and the number ( ) of particles of
( )
lifetime surviving after a time is given by ( )
. If we prepare a beam of these
particles in the laboratory, then the flux of the particles after a time-interval or at a distance
from the source is given by
( )

( )

( )
( )
( )
where is the restmass of the particle and other symbols have their usual meanings.

(2.9)
(2.10)

It is worth noting that this realization as very important implications for day-to-day nuclear physics
experiments. As one prepares secondary beams of particles such as pions, kaons, muons, and more
recently beams of radioactive nuclei, these expressions have practical value in the designs of
beamlines, experimental setups and detector ensembles.
9

2.4 Reduced Transition Probabilities

The nuclear and particle physics may be summarized in one sentence as the enterprise of structures and
interactions. The structures involve the properties of energy levels: energies, spin, parity and multipole
moments etc... . What one calls as particles in particle physics are quite often considered as levels
and/or resonances in nuclear physics. For particles too, we are interested in these properties. For
example, the penta-quark5 if it survives the test of appearing as a resonance, the immediate task is to
determine its spin and parity. Very often, we are measuring the reaction cross sections or decay rates,
which are simply measures of transition probabilities.
|

(2.11)

Phase space factors depend on the kinematics of the process and lager phase space factors render the
measurements somewhat easier. They carry no physics other than energy and momentum
conservations. While the phase space is a very important consideration for the feasibility of
measurements, it has little use with regard to statements on the dynamics of processes.
The matrix elements comprise of two distinct components:
a) geometric part: projections of i) the angular momenta (intrinsic spin and orbital angular momenta)
of the wavefunctions and ii) the third component of the tensor operator under consideration
b) reduced matrix elements: The reduced matrix elements essentially contain all the dynamics and,
very often, they are the meeting points of theory and experiment.
As an example, say that a nuclear decays by emitting a photon of multipolarity L. The transition rate,
besides other things, is proportional to (

, which represents phase space contribution.

In nuclear physics and also in atomic and molecular systems, low multipoles are favored transitions,
since photon energies in nuclear transitions are a few MeV or less. From the data, one deduces what
are known as reduced transition rates, after factoring out these kinematical contributions. They are
the squares of the reduced matrix elements which come out of Wigner-Eckart theorem that you
encounter in quantum mechanics courses.
When we refer to reduced matrix elements, it is separating out the dependence on projection quantum
numbers, which simply contain the geometrical information from the dynamical information, which
contains physics. These reduced matrix elements contain the dynamics.
One writes

where a state of |

makes a transition to |

due to operator

(2.12)

. It is important to note that

A penta-quark is a hypothetical subatomic particle consisting of four quarks and one antiquark bound together (compared
to three quarks in normal baryons). As quarks have a baryon number of +13, and antiquarks of 13, it would have a total
baryon number of 1, thus being classified as an exotic baryon (1).

10

the term with double bars , contains the dynamical information. It does not depend on ,
or
. The geometrical information, which pertains to angular momentum conservation principles, is
contained in the Clebsch-Gordon coefficient
|
. While the value of angular momentum
conservation cannot be undermined, there is little room to improve or vary the modeling in that
parameter. It is only the reduced matrix element where we can make changes in the physics problem.
We might also take the opportunity to remind that the reduced matrix element, as it simply depends on
, and , it needs to be calculated only once for all the possible combinations of and
. This
feature has not only the power of calculating various m-states coupled with different q-s very easily,
it also enables us to make links with seemingly unrelated processes, say for example, beta decay to the
corresponding gamma transitions in iso-spin formalism.

2.5 Cross section

The experimental results from all reactions are generally presented as cross section. While various
units and dimensions are used to quote them, one basic idea of cross section is that it has dimensions of
an area. Accordingly, we can define a differential cross section as below:
A monoenergetic beam of particles impinges on a target. The beam flux is the number of particles
crossing unit area transverse to the beam direction in a unit time. If there Nb particles per unit volume
of the beam and all of them traveling with velocity, then the flux
Assume that Ntar is the number of target nuclei intercepted by the incident beam. A detector set at an
angle (
) with respect to the incident beam direction, subtending a solid angle
, registers
(2.13)

or
(2.14)

The proportionality constant, which has dimensions of area, is called cross section.
When the detector subtends a finite solid angle, our measurement yields the differential probability that
the particles go in the direction (
) ie., the differential cross section.
(2.15)

It should be noted that this definition is useful when beam of arbitrary dimensions is incident on a
target as long as the entire beam is intercepted by the target.
If the beam is of cross sectional area , then the number of beam particles incident per unit time is
(2.16)

and the number of target atoms intercepting the beam

(2.17)

where is the number of atoms per unit volume of target material and is the target thickness.
11

We know
(2.18)

here

is the density of material and

is its atomic number. Then

(2.19)

In the final expression, " " the area cross section of the beam does not enter and it thus free from the
uncertainty of beam dimensions. The total number of beam particles are usually measured by the flux
monitors or charge integrator systems.
and are expressed in units of gm/cm3 and cm, respectively, or some multiples of these units,
will has dimensions of mass/area. The target thicknesses are usually referred to in
units, because
it is a direct measure of the number of scattering centers, a parameter of basic interest in nuclear and
particle physics experiments.
If

When one wants to compare relative effectiveness of different materials for the number of scattering
centers, the units of thickness in cm, mm etc. are not very informative and the are very convenient.
As example, an Al (A=27, = 2.7 gm/cm3) target of thickness
as Pb (A=208,= 11.35 gm/cm3) of thickness
is given by

of same number of scattering centers

(2.20)

Similar units (thickness = mass/area) are used when one is handling problems of energy losses by
charged particles or electromagnetic shower propagation etc.
In the estimations of energy deposits of high energy electrons or electromagnetic radiation in matter,
radiation length is a useful unit. Typical of Markovian processes, the energy loss is exponential. The
energy
of the particle after it traverses a distance ' ' in the absorber is given by
(2.21)

where X0 is the radiation length, specific to the material. Just as above, it is common to refer to the
length is gm/cm2 units or multiple/submultiples of this unit. The X0 ~ 180 (A/Z2) gm/cm2. As Z scales
roughly as A/2, one can see that higher Z materials have shorter radiation lengths and they are more
effective in stopping the electrons or electromagnetic radiation, as we would have expected.
One also estimates a critical energy below which the energy loss of electrons is mainly by ionization
and above which radiation losses become significant. The critical energy is Ec ~ 550/Z MeV.

12

2.6 Basic properties of nuclei and particles

Each particle or nucleus is specified by the classical properties such as mass and charge. We employ
multiples of electron volts as units for masses (1GeV = 1.782 x 10-27 kg) and electron charges (e =
1.602 x 10-19 Coulombs). Each particle and each level in nuclei carry a finite angular momentum
(intrinsic spin) and, very often, a well defined parity. Also, in classical terms, these entities carry
electromagnetic multipole moments. In addition, we define certain attributes unique to quantum
mechanical subatomic world, such as baryon number, lepton number, isospin etc.
First, we should list the commonly encountered quantum numbers of these subatomic entities.
a) Intrinsic spin: Each particle (quantum) has a well-defined spin as intrinsic property6. The spin
can be an integer or a half-integer in units of . The particles of half-integral spin obey FermiDirac statistics, while those of integral spins are subject to Bose-Einstein statistics. As you
know from quantum mechanics, the spins of a composite set of particles are subject to vectorial
|
additions. As example, for a two particle system |
, where are the spins
of individual particles. The same reasoning is used when we are interested in finding the total
angular momentum of a particle as a vectorial sum of intrinsic spin and orbital angular
momentum.
The nucleons (protons, neutrons), the leptons (e, , and neutrinos) and quarks are
Fermions. The mesons (, K etc.) and photons are Bosons. Of course, the gauge bosons carry
integer spin.
b) Parity: Parity of a particle/system is the behavior under reflection the correspondence
between the system at hand and its mirror image. For quantum mechanical systems, it is the
spatial inversion of the three axes in Cartesian representation (
).
Under mirror reflection, the left and right are interchanged. When we say a system is invariant
under parity operation, we mean that the system and its mirror image are indistinguishable. In
quantum mechanical systems, we are interested in if the wavefunction remains unchanged or
not under spatial inversion. In macroscopic systems, we know that there are systems which
show a preferred handedness (left versus right). For example, we know optically active
substances which rotate the plane of vibration either clockwise (right hand dextrorotary) or
counterclockwise (left-levorotary). Clearly the system and its mirror image are not the same.
Then, why should one expect that the subatomic systems may be invariant under parity
operations?
There is a bit of history behind this. In 1924, Laporte discovered that there are two classes of atomic
levels and corresponding selection rules for electromagnetic transitions. If you look at two high-lying
energy levels decaying low-lying ones. There are cases where each one selectively populates certain
low-lying ones, which is not populated by the other level. In 1927, Wigner showed that this behavior
follows from the properties of invariance under space reflections and this is named as parity
invariance. Almost immediately, in 1928, Cox observed that the parity invariance is not obeyed in beta
6

Mathematically and in terms of its manifestation on physical observables, spin is analogous to

angular momentum. Hence, it is called intrinsic spin angular momentum. Some molecules exhibit
even-multiplets of line spectra of doublets and quadruplets. As the multiplicity is (
), one
requires that the must be half-integer for the even multiplets. The orbital angular momentum cannot
accommodate this requirement. The intrinsic spin was conjectured to accommodate this observation.
13

decays. However, he was ignored. In 1955, people encountered a problem, which came to be known as
puzzle. A neutral strange meson known, nowadays, as K0 meson was found to decay to 2 and
3 final states, while each pion has a negative parity. We will discuss the parity assignment of pion a
bit later.
The question was how a particle can decay to both a positive parity state and also a negative parity
state and still conserve parity. If the ensemble of particle in question were not one and the same type,
there was no distinction among them except for this decay mode. How could a species of particles with
same mass, charge, spin etc., could be different? This was a dilemma. Immediately after that T.D. Lee
and C.N. Yang hypothesized that parity conservation may not be universally valid and it might be
broken in weak decays. They also suggested an experiment, which was successfully carried out Mme.
Wu and her collaborators.

2.7 Parity
What is parity operation? Under parity operation,
and
. We classify physical
observables as scalars, vectors, etc. according to the their behavior under parity operation. Either
they change or do not change sign.
Scalars: They are invariant under parity operation (mass, charge)
Vectors: Change sign

and

Pseudovectors: They are vectors but they do not change sign under parity operation. A common
example is angular momentum, . Under parity operation and .
Pseudoscalars: These are scalars, but they change sign under parity operation. Helicity, defined as

| |

is an example of pseudoscalar observable.

If a physical system has a good parity, ie., if the corresponding wavefunction is an eigenstate of parity
operators, what are the eigenvalues? It is easy to show that the eigenvalues are either +1 or 1:
(2.22)
( )
( )
( )
The eigenvalue of P2 is 1 and thus the eigenvalue of P = 1.
At this stage, we do not know any thing about parity invariance. The wave functions
may be very different.

( ) and (

Say, the system specified by the wavefunction (x) is invariant under parity operation. The
]
Hamiltonian is such that
( )
( ). And [
as required by Noethers theorem.
(2.23)
( )
( )
( )
( )
( )
( )
or
( ) also satisfies
( ).
The wavefunctions ( ) and
There are two possibilities

( ) satisfy the same Schrdinger equation with the same eigenvalue .

14

i)
ii)

The state with energy is doubly degenerate so that two different physical states described
by ( ) and ( ) have the same energy.
If the state is not degenerate, then ( ) and ( ) describe the same physical state and thus
they are proportional to each other.
(2.24)
( )
( )

implies, for a constant,

( )
( )
( )
( )
If the wave function is an eigenfunction of parity operator, we may write
( )
( ),

(2.25)

(2.26)

where is the eigenvalue.

We have already seen that the eigenvalues of parity operator are 1.
( )
( )
( )

(2.27)

Thus if a wavefunction is an eigenfunction of parity operator, the corresponding state or particle has
even ( ) parity or odd ( ) parity.
The orbital parity of particle or system is due to its orbital angular momentum. In three dimensions, not
including the intrinsic spin, we write the wavefunction
(2.28)
( )
( )
(
)
The transformation between Cartesian and spherical polar coordinates is given by
(2.29)

The parity operation

or
Thus, the parity operation is replacing
component of the wavefunction.

by

is same as
,
.
by
in the spherical harmonics

and

We also have
(
[

)]
(

(
(

) [

| |)
]
| |)

(
(

(
)

(2.31)
(2.32)

(2.30)

(2.33)

Thus.
( )

( )
(
( ) ( )

)
(

( )
) (

(
)

)
( )

(2.34)

So, the parity is even ( ) if is even and it is odd ( ) if is odd.

15

We thus have
l = 0, 1, 2, 3,
s, p, d, f,
= +, , +, ,
For particles, we identify two distinct parities: one is the intrinsic parity of the particle and the other is
the orbital parity, ie., parity due to orbital angular momentum.
Parity is a multiplicative quantum number and thus the parity of a particle is
( )

(2.35)

Intrinsic parity are characteristics of the individual particles and they are specified once for all.
Protons and neutrons are assigned intrinsic positive parities. Relative to these parity assignments, from
experiments, one deduces that pions have negative (odd) parity. Electrons and strange mesons like
kaons do not have well defined parity. We will discuss this later.
Electromagnetic transitions carry parity information. For electric and magnetic multipoles, the parity is
( ) and ( )
, where
is the multipolarity of the transition viz.,
for dipole,
for
quadrupole,
for octupole etc.
Also, we assign parities to individual nuclear states. Since nucleons (protons and neutrons have
positive parity), and overall parity is the product of individual parities, only orbital parities of nucleons
are relevant.
Thus, for a nuclear state the parity is

(2.36)

Besides the energy, a nuclear state is labeled with angular momentum ( ) and parity ( ) as

Parity conservation gives rise to selection rules in reactions and decays involving particles and nuclei.
Rule:
In a reaction or decay, initial = final.
In a reaction A+ B C +D, AB = CD.
Examples
1. particles have positive intrinsic parity and zero spin
+
(0 ). If an particle has orbital angular momentum l, then
. Thus, the parity of an particle
( )
( ) .
If a nuclear level of
by -emission,
|

decays to another level of

,
and
;
or, we simply have

.
16

The particle is of even parity. This decay can occur by emitting d-wave alpha particles, satisfying
both angular momentum and parity selection rules.
Consider, now, a final state JB= 1+. Angular momentum selection rules allow for
the parity considerations will limit the alpha emission to d-waves only.

or 3 but

2. A nuclear reaction:
The ground state of 9Be, 8Be and are of intrinsic spin-parity combinations
, 0+ and 1+,
respectively. If we can specify the j, a vector composition of intrinsic spin and orbital angular
momentum of deuterons or protons, we can find the allowed spin-parity combinations of the incoming
protons or the emitted deuterons. Also, we can consider the excited levels of 8Be, which have different
spin-parity and constrain the angular momenta of the deutrons and protons.
In practical applications, one measures the angular distributions of emitted deutrons, from which one
can deduce the angular mometum transfers in the reactions. This will enable, in favorable cases, to
perform the spectroscopic studies.
3. Electromagnetic transitions:
A nuclear level makes a transition to another level by emission of a photon.

Initial parity: in = A
Final parity:

where , the parity of the emitted photon.

If A and B are of different parities, then is negative (odd). If A
and B are of the the same parity (odd or even), then the is
positive (even).

For multipolarity L, electric transitions have parity (-)L and magnetic transitions have
L+1.
Therefore, if A and B have opposite parities, then parity conservation allows E1, M2, E3 etc.
(Electric odd, Magnetic even) multipoles.
If A and B are of the same parity (even or odd), then parity conservation allows M1, E2, M3 etc.
(Magnetic odd and/or Electric even) multipoles.
Angular momentum conservation further limits the multipolarities since |

Ex:
i)
ii)
iii)

and
and
and

It is also of interest to note that conservation of parity and angular momentum constrain the multipole
moments of the nuclear levels and particles.

17

In case of static moments

. Thus, only even parity multipole moments are possible subject to
the angular momentum constraints L 2J, where J = JA= JB
For a system with definite parity, odd parity multipole moments vanish, ie. Electric multipole moments
such as E1, E3, or magnetic multipoles such as M2, M4, ... are zero.
The multipole moments of nuclei and particles provide important observables. Any system with nonzero spin (spin 1/2) can have non-zero magnetic dipole moment and systems with spin 1 can also
have electric quadrupole moment. These two properties, especially magnetic dipole moment are well
studied for particles and nuclei and thus we should discuss them now.

2.8 Magnetic dipole moment

Magnetic dipole moments are manifestations of moving charges and/or intrinsic spin. Classically, any
charged particle moving in a closed path produces a magnetic field which, at large distances, can be
described as due to a magnetic dipole located at the current loop. Thus, all charged particles and
ensembles of them carrying charges evince a magnetic dipole (M1) moment. Electromagnetism tells us
that the magnitude of M1 moment is equal to the product of the current and area of the loop with its
direction along the normal to the plane of the loop.

(2.37)

where r is a unit vector, normal to the current loop, is the area of the loop and is the electric
current. If we take the area of the loop as
, for a circular path, then we have the current

(
) in Gaussian units.

Or

(2.38)

For positive charges is along , and for negative charges it is oppositely oriented.
For transition to quantum mechanics, replace by , where
(
) with = 0, 1, 2, are
integers. In addition, we have to include the effects of intrinsic spin and replace by , where
is the total angular momentum vector. Also an extra multiplicative factor, known as Landes g-factor,
appears. The Landes g-factor is written as
(
)
(
)
(
)
(2.39)
(
)
When we are concerned with particles themselves, orbital angular momentum is zero and thus
is the intrinsic spin of the particle, we expect
. For electrons,

,
(2.40)

is known as Bohr magneton.

18

We would have expected the electron magnetic moment

. The electron magnetic
moment is found to be 1.0012 B .
Thus the effective factor is not exactly equal to 2, but it is
. In quantum field theory
calculations, one could account for this deviation from 2 as due to relativistic effects.
Similarly, we can define nuclear magneton as
(2.41)

The magnetic moment of proton is found to be

or
(
)
. The magnetic
)
moment of neutron is
or (
. One assigns the g-factors for the orbital
components as ( )
and ( )
, for protons and neutrons, respectively.
A few things to ponder: First, (
) is much larger than 2 and neutron magnetic moment is not
equal to zero. Here is an indication that proton and neutrons are not fundamental particles. Even
though neutrons are of net zero electric charge, this is an indication that there may be equal and
opposite charges inside the neutron. Here is a clue for the quark-models of hadrons7.
In this model, a proton is made up of two up [q=(2/3)e] and one down [q=(-1/3)e] quarks, while a
neutron is made up of one up and two down quarks. Let us consider
,
wavefunctions of protons and neutrons made from these configurations.
As the quarks are Fermions with spin = 1/2, we may write three possible configurations for the proton
, with and indicating +1/2 and 1/2 projections, respectively.

wavefunction |

a) u u d ,

b) u u d and

In a) the two up quarks group to give

8
group to
,
Thus the uu (

c) u u d

and it is unique. In the b) and c), the up quarks

)d(1/2,1/2) wavefunction is (
) .

The proton wave function is now written as

|

(2.42)

We can write the quark-magneton (Q) in analogy with Bohr and nuclear magnetons as
, where
are the masses of quarks and qQ = +2e/3 and e/3 for up and down quarks.
The magnetic moment of proton is | |
| | (
) .

. We find the magnetic moment of neutron

Hadron is a generic name for strongly interacting particles. Hadrons are further classified as baryons
and mesons. Baryons are Fermions or composite system made up of Fermions. Meson are Bosons. In
quark models, they are quark-antiquark pairs. Recently, Belle groups at KEK and BaBar at SLAC have
claimed that they have discovered exotic mesons made up of complex structures.
8
The antisymmetric
,
, is not used here, since the antisymmetrization requirement is
satisfied by the color components.
19

The experimental ratio of proton/neutron magnetic moment is

, while the model predicts
We cannot complain. The absolute values of magnetic moments is another story.

2.9 Electric Quadrupole Moments

For parity reasons, only electric multipole moments of even L are non-zero subject to the condition
that
. The multipole moments reveal the shapes of nuclei and charge distributions and thus are
of interest in nuclear physics. Working in classical physics framework, we can write the electrical
potential [ ( )] at a point ( ) far from the nucleus as
(
here

is the atomic number,

(2.43)

and

are electric dipole and quadrupole moments, respectively.

The same result can be derived as an integration over the nuclear volume. The potential
charge ( )
located at a distance from the center of nucleus in a volume element
(
) is given by
( )
( )
| |
where
|
For

( ) due to
at a point
(2.44)

(2.45)

, use a Taylor expansion

|

(2.46)

or the potential
( )

( )

( )

Equations (2.43) and (2.47) should be equal for all

We then have

and . For convenience, set

(2.47)

}
,

(2.48)

( )

(2.49)

( )
( )(

(2.50)

The charge element ( )

in a nucleus is the product of proton charge (e) and the probability
th
( )
of finding an i proton in volume
at and sum over all Z protons in the nucleus. ( )
is found from the nuclear wave function (
) of all A nucleons and integrating over the
positions of the remaining
nucleons.

20

( )
( )

( )

| (

(2.51)

)|

The monopole moment is simply the total nuclear charge.

The electric dipole moment is
| (

where

)|

(2.52)

is the product of A volume elements.

The wave function is proportional to (

) and regardless whether
function of even powers in cos . Thus, the angular integration,

is even or odd, ||2 is a

(2.53)

for as an integer vanishes.

Thus, the electric dipole moment for a nuclear/particle state of well defined parity vanishes. 9 The
quadrupole moment can be written, dropping the primes, as
(

)| (

)|

(2.54)

has dimensions of area and it is expressed in units of barns (10-24cm2) or fm2. 1fm2= 10 millibarns
If charge distribution is spherical,
.
. It should be noted that spherical charge
distribution gives
, but
does not always mean that the nuclear charge distribution is
spherical. Angular momentum principles require
for to be non-zero.
In addition to these classical and semi-classical attributes of nuclei and particles, one assigns discrete
additive quantum numbers. Some of these quantum numbers are specific to number conservations and
the interactions they contribute to.
Strong interactions are short-range forces responsible for nuclear binding. These interactions are
effective over distances of a few femto meters (10-15 meters) or less. All particles which participate in
strong interactions are called hadrons. Hadrons are further classified into baryons and mesons.
Baryons are Fermions (spin is odd multiples of 1/2). One assigns a baryon number of
to each of
these particles and
to their anti-particles. In any reaction or decay process, the total number of
9

A non-vanishing static electric dipole moment (edm) implies not only Parity break down, but it also
requires that Time reversal invariance is violated. Thus, experiments attempting to measure edm of
electron and neutron have been carried out with ever increasing precisions for over 50 years. So far,
the results are negative. The quest continues.
21

baryons remains a constant. Protons, neutrons and the excited states are each of baryon number
.
The baryon number of a nucleus of mass number A is simply A. The quark models describe the
protons and neutrons as made up of three sea-quarks. Each of these quarks (up and down) carries a
baryon number 1/3, so that the total baryon number of a nucleon is one. The mesons such as pion, kaon
etc. participate in strong interactions. They are hadrons of integer spins. The meson number is not
conserved, just as number of photons is not conserved.
Weak interactions are responsible for decays and they are of even shorter range than the strong
interactions. Strength-wise, they are ~ 10-8 of strong interactions. The Fermions which participate in
weak interactions and devoid of strong interactions are called leptons. Charged leptons contribute to
electromagnetic processes also, but they do not contribute to strong interactions. There are three
families of leptons known today. They are electrons (me= 0.511 MeV), muon (m= 105.66 MeV) and
tau lepton (m=1777 MeV). Each of them has an associated neutrino. There was a long search to see if
these lepton families remain distinct from each other or if they oscillate from one to the other. Also the
question concerns whether the neutrinos are indeed of zero mass. Recent reports from Japan and
Europe indicate positive results, ie ., neutrinos do oscillate, but we await further confirmations 10. In
most processes, each lepton flavor is separately conserved. The electron and its neutrino are assigned a
lepton number
and their anti-particles are of lepton number . Similar assignments are made for
muons and taus.
Strange particles are hadrons (baryons and mesons) and they have the strange property that their
decays proceed through weak interactions. Thus one assigns a strangeness quantum number to them.
Strangeness quantum number is assigned to particles. It is not conserved in weak interactions.
Ordinary matter and leptons are assigned strangeness quantum number zero. The strange mesons and
baryons have a non-zero strangeness number S.
One then defines another quantum number, called hyper charge (Y)
(K+, K-, K0) the hypercharge and strangeness are numerically equal, since
(
, etc.)
and thus
.

. For strange mesons

. For strange baryons

It is of interest to note that there are three generations of quarks and three generations of leptons, as
shown below:
( )
(

( )
( )

( )
( )

They are all Fermions of spin 1/2. In each family the charge difference between the two members
. In first approximation, normal matter is made up of up and down quarks and electrons.
In these models, the proton and neutron, as we have seen before are made up of uud and udd quarks,
respectively.

10

As of 2005, particle physics community is convinced of the neutrino flavor oscillations, thanks to the
experimental results from Japan, Canada and Europe. The question of neutrino - antineutrino
oscillations is still open.
22

The wave functions for the three pions are

and

Among the strange baryons, the lowest and the first discovered one is
uds.

(1115 MeV) of configuration

We will come back to quark models of hadrons later in this course.

23

Chapter 3.

Identical Particles

When we deal with identical particles on atomic and subatomic scale, we have the problem of
indistinguishability, not very commonly encountered in macroscopic world. If we are concerned with
identical particles in classical mechanics, we can label them or color them differently and study the
collisions. Or, we can make a movie of the collision, replay it and study the dynamics. However, in our
subatomic physics realm, subject of quantum mechanics, such an analysis is impossible. When two
identical wavepackets approach, overlap and recede, it is not possible to determine if an observed
wavepacket is a scattered one or the recoil particle. All we can say is that it belongs to one of them,
with the second wavepacket belonging to the other.

Hamiltonian or any operator of physical observables is a symmetric function of the two identical
particles.
Say, the wave function,
with

( )

( ), is an eigenfunction of the Hamiltonian

(

) (

(3.1)

) (

(3.2)

then,
with

()

( ) is also an acceptable solution.

How to construct a wave function that describes such physical system? As there is no way to
distinguish between two possibilities mentioned above, the wave function is constructed as a linear
combination of the two.
Let us define a permutation operator which exchanges the coordinates of two particles, i.e.,
( )
( )
( )
( )
The eigen value of P2 is

and thus the projection operator has eigen values11

() ()
() ()

(3.3)

,.
(3.4)

It is a property of the particle whether the sign

or
is obtained under the permutation of two
12
identical particles . If sign appears, the wave function is symmetric under the exchange of
coordinates of the two particles and they obey Bose-Einstein statistics and these particles are Bosons.
If a ve sign appears, the wave function is anti-symmetric under the exchange of coordinates and the
particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics and they are Fermions.

11

Since ( ) and ( ) represent the same physical state, the permutation corresponds to eigen
value operation.
12
Note that both permutation operator and parity operator are eigenvalues
. Generally, they both are
abbreviated as P operation. There should, however, be no confusion about their different roles.
24

Only experiment will determine if the particles are Fermions or Bosons. As we have known for a
while, particles with 1/2 integer spins are Fermions and those with integer spins are Bosons. Examples
of Fermions are p, n, e-, etc. Odd A nuclei are Fermions. Particles with integer spins are
Bosons. Examples are mesons, gauge Bosons i.e. Photon, W, Z and gluons etc. Nuclei of even mass
number are Bosons.
Given a system of identical particles, one can construct the wave function following a recipe.
Rules:
1. Know thy particle (Fermion or Boson?)
2. Write a wavefunction for an arbitrary labeling of particles and coordinates,
(
)
3. Starting from 2, write a wavefunction, which is a linear combination of all possible
permutations.
Note:
a)
Symmetric wave functions (Bosons) do not change sign under permutations
b)
Antisymmetric wave functions (Fermions) do not change sign under EVEN number of
permutations. They change sign under ODD number of permutations.
4. Normalize thy wave functions. If you are dealing with n particles, divide 3) by
Examples: Two particle wave functions
a) two Bosons

() ()
() ()
()

b) Two Fermions

()

()

()
()

( )]

() ()
() ()
()

()

()

( )]

()

()

c) If we are dealing with more than two particles, it may become difficult to keep track of signs.
No problem. Use determinant approach.
Write

()

() |
|
|
|

|
|
|

()

If we have N particles, which give the arbitrary wave function,

|
||

|
|

|
|

()

( )

25

Now, we obtain a very important result for the Fermions. Say, any two of the coordinates i, j, , n are
identical. For definiteness, say,
. Two columns of the determinant are the same. The determinant
is zero and thus the wave function vanishes.
Thus, this construction says that no two identical Fermions can occupy the same physical state. This
important result is known as Pauli exclusion principle which you would have come across before.
There is no such restriction for Bosons.
Suppose, we have
energy levels available. Let us say that we put N Bosons,
one in each of these levels. If we, now, bring in an external cooling agency to reduce the energy of the
system, the Bosons will move down to lower energies. Eventually, they may settle down to the lowest
energy state to so that the total energy of the system becomes N1. This phenomenon is known as
Bose-Einstein condensation. It has been experimentally observed in atomic systems.
If the particles are Fermions, no such cooling effect can push the particles down to lower occupied
levels due to Pauli exclusion principle. The total energy of the system is
. The
13
energy level N below which all levels are occupied is called Fermi-level .

13

At finite temperatures, the filling of levels does not happen such that there is a level below which all
levels are filled and above which every thing is empty. In stead, there are some vacancies in lower
levels with higher levels are partially filled. Here, Fermi level is defined as the level which is 50%
filled.
26

Chapter 4.

Isospin

Consider a neutron and a proton. Ask what are common features between them? What are the
differences? They both have spin 1/2, of nearly same mass, participate in strong interactions and they
are constituents of atomic nuclei. The only major distinction is the electric charge. In view of this, it is
tempting to consider these two particles as two different charge states of one and same particle. Just as
a spin 1/2 particle can have two states (m = +1/2, and 1/2), which can be transformed from one to the
other by rotations in 3-dimensional space, we may imagine proton and neutron to be two projections of
one single particle, call it nucleon, in a hypothetical charge space, which can be mathematically
transformed into one another by rotations in this hypothetical space, called isospin space. The
mathematical treatment is identical to spin algebra and thus the name was coined14.
A nucleon has isospin I= 1/2.
A proton is I3 = +1/2 projection of nucleon.
A neutron is I3 = -1/2 projection of nucleon.
Charge of a nucleon
(

(4.1)

For a nucleus of A(Z,N)

[ ()

( )]

(4.2)

where I3 is the isospin projection of the nucleus A(Z,N).

For Z protons

()

N neutrons
()
For a nucleus,
(
) . We know, from angular momentum algebra
Thus, for a nucleus A, I = |I3|, |I3|+1, |I3|+2, , A/2.

| |

The isospin concept is not limited to nucleons. It is useful for mesons and other baryons. For example,
the pion family can be grouped as an isospin triplet of
and I3 = +1, 0 and 1 for and
respectively. We can then write the charge of a pion as
. This equation is not the same as what
we have as relation between isospin and charge for nucleons. It would be nice if we can write one
equation to represent every thing.
We mentioned about hyper charge previously. We can use the definition of hyper charge to write the
charge of a hadron as
[

(4.3)

14

Heisenberg came up with this idea in 1932, soon after the discovery of neutron. Nuclear physicists
use the symbol T, while particle physicists use the symbol I. Also, particle physicists have proton as of
positive projection in isospin space, while nuclear physicists use ve sign. We follow the convention
of particle physicists.
27

This equation, known as Gellmann-Nishijima formula, applies to mesons and baryons.

mesons
for baryons and
for anti-baryons.

for

With the advent of quark models, we are required to further generalize this formula. It is achieved as
below: All quarks have baryon number
, and anti-quarks have
. All quarks have
positive intrinsic parity and anti-quarks have negative parity. The up quark is of
, down
quark has

. All other quarks have

In addition, the charm quark has

, the strange quark has
, the top quark has
and
the bottom quark has
. We may call them as charmness, strangeness, topness and bottomness,
respectively. Now, we can write the electric charge of a quark as Generalized Gellmann-Nishijima
formula
(4.4)

here

is the baryon number and

is bottomness number.

Weak interactions conserve only the baryon number, while electromagnetic and strong interactions
conserve them all. The number conservation refers to the sum, with particles and anti-particles having
opposite sign ( and ) for these additive quantum numbers.

28

Chapter 5.

Isospin Formalism of Two nucleon systems

The total wavefunction of two nucleon system is anti-symmetric under the exchange of the particles:
( )
We write
, where
wavefunction, respectively.

( ),

are radial, spin and isospin components of the

The treatment of isospin part of the wavefunction is same as the spin part of the wavefunction. For two
nucleons, with
, we have resultant
.
is a triplet with three magnetic substates,
is a singlet with one magnetic substate,
We use symbols and for the single nucleon spin functions
respectively.

and

We, then, for the spin-part of the two nucleon wavefunctions:

( ) ( )
( ) ( )

for spin-triplet states and

[ ( ) ( )

[ ( ) ( )

( ) ( )]
(5.2)

( ) ( )]

We can construct the isospin wavefunction in exactly same way, call them
(

(5.1)

) and

).

For two identical nucleons viz., proton-proton

neutron-proton system has
.

, for neutron-neutron

and

Accordingly, we have isospin wavefunction of two protons: (1)(2); isospin wavefunction of two
neutrons: (1)(2)
For a neutron-proton system, we may have an isospin triplet member with
( ) ( )]
[ ( ) ( )
or isospin singlet

and

and
(5.3)

[ ( ) ( )

(5.4)

( ) ( )]

When we construct wavefunctions, we have to ensure that the total wavefunction

antisymmetric.

( )

is

For a two-nucleon system with

(p-p, n-n or n-p with
, pairs) the isospin component of the
wavefunction is symmetric under exchange. We then require that the product of spatial and spin
component of the wavefunction ( ) is antisymmetric.
29

If the nucleon-pair is in spin triplet state (

), the spin-part of the wavefunction is symmetric and if
it is in spin singlet state (
), the spin part of the wavefunction is anti-symmetric.
For two nucleon system, spatial exchange of particles is mathematically equivalent to parity operation.
The wave function is specified by the relative coordinate
. Clearly, interchanging 1 and 2
results in a ()ve sign in front of the vector, which is same as parity operation.
( ) ( ) ( ), where l is the relative orbital angular
Thus, under spatial exchange ( )
momentum of the two particles.
For l even, spatial part of the wavefunction is symmetric, ie., for S, D, G, . ( ) is symmetric.
For l odd, spatial part of the wavefunction is anti-symmetric, ie., for P, F, H, . ( ) is antisymmetric.
Thus, for

, l even,

is anti-symmetric.

For

, l odd,

For

, neutron-proton (n-p) system, l even,

For

, and l odd,

System
p-p, n-n
n-p of
n-p of

is symmetric.

, spin-triplet is the possibility,

is anti-symmetric,

Isospin
Symmetric
Anti-symmetric

, spin-singlet is the only possibility,

is symmetric.

, spin-triplet is the possibility,

, spin-singlet is the only possibility.

Space
Symmetric (l-even)
Anti-symmetric (l-odd)
Anti-symmetric (l-odd)
Symmetric (l-even)

Spin
Anti-symmetric (
Symmetric (
)
Anti-symmetric (
Symmetric (
)

)
)

Problem: Write the wave functions of n-n, n-p and p-p systems of arbitrary orbital angular momentum.
Simply write the spin and isospin components explicitly and label the radial component as ( ).
Of the three possible two-nucleon systems (n-p, n-n and p-p), only n-p system has one bound state. It
is the ground state of deuteron (nucleus of deuterium, heavy hydrogen).
The properties of the ground state are:
.
The binding energy = -2.225 MeV
The magnetic dipole moment d= 0.8574 N.
The electric quadrupole moment = 0.288 fm2
The ground state spin-parity suggest 3S1,
configuration. However, the observation that
and quadrupole moment is not zero indicate that the deuteron wave function is not a pure 3S1.
A natural extension suggests that we write the deuteron wave function as
(5.5)
|

|
|

30

with

as normalization condition.

One would like to determine the magnitude of from model arguments. This problem was a topic of
study for a few decades of research and then abandoned, except to note that its contribution is of the
order of a few percent.
Deuteron has no bound excited levels. In neutron-proton scattering, one observes an s-wave
resonances, for an incident neutron kinetic energy of En ~ 150 keV, which corresponds to an excited
level of
MeV. The resonance is of
,
and it corresponds to 1S0 configuration.
It should be noted that deuteron is the only stable A=2 nucleus.
Stable 2He and di-neutron do not exist. If they were to exist, the lowest energy state (ground state)
would be of
,
configuration, corresponding to the unbound excited level of deuteron.
One considers this feature to be compatible with the hypothesis that nuclear forces are charge
independent.
When we think of nuclear forces, we should remember that there are three distinct interactions
contributing to nuclear phenomena. For completeness, we list the interactions and their general
characteristics:
Type of interaction
Strong

Range
~ fm

Strength
1

Electromagnetic
Weak
Gravitational

~am

= 1/137
10-6 - 10-8
10-38

Exchange quantum
etc. mesons
gluons
photon
W, Z
Graviton

In nuclear physics, strong and electromagnetic interactions play important roles in almost all processes.
Weak interactions are essential to describe the -decays and related phenomena. Electromagnetic
by Quantum electrodynamics (QED) and the hope is that one has the
processes are well described
theory of strong interactions in quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
If we separately consider the strong interaction part of nuclear forces, we are looking at forces among
identical particles since electric charge is the only difference between protons and neutrons. Thus, the
following hypotheses are put forward:
a) Strong interactions are two-body type.
This amounts to an assumption that in a nucleus or other many-body system, the interaction
between all the particles is sum of the interactions of all possible pairs, acting as if they were
isolated pairs, free from the interactions due to other particles. We may, thus, write the nuclear
Hamiltonian as

(5.6)

The question whether this hypothesis is correct has been a subject of several investigations.
One asks if we have to incorporate three-body forces of the type
and terms of
31

higher order. Due to nuclear dynamical complexities and model ambiguities, this question is
not yet settled15.
b) Strong interactions are charge independent
The strength of interaction between a pair of nucleons does not change whether the partner is a
neutron or proton. Or n-n, p-p, n-p forces are all same. One attempts to verify this statement by
comparing the scattering lengths from the scattering cross section data of pairs of nucleons.
This amounts to say that strong forces are charge blind16.
According to this hypothesis, in the absence of electromagnetic interactions, all members of an
isobaric multiplet (nuclei of same mass number) will be of identical properties. We know that
they exhibit vastly different properties. These differences may, as first approximation, be
attributed to electromagnetic interactions.
Example:
c) Strong interactions are charge- symmetric
This statement asserts that n-n and p-p forces are same and it is implicit in the charge
independence hypothesis. Thus, it is a lesser symmetry.
This symmetry has interesting consequences for properties of mirror nuclei, the pair of nuclei
of same number with proton number (Z) same as the neutron number (N) of the partner
nucleus.
Examples,
;
14 isobar multiplet.

are two pairs. Note that Mass-14 mirror pair is a subset of mass

Problem: Deduce that the mirror symmetry follows from the charge symmetry hypothesis.
Hint: The p-p pairs of a member are numerically same as the n-n members of its partner, while the n-p
pairs are equal for both members.
In addition, we recognize that they are conservative and they are mainly central forces. They are
attractive and they saturate. The last property accounts for, at least qualitatively, that the binding
energy per nucleon (B/A 8.5 MeV). For each mass number, there are a few (Z,N) combinations
which constitute stable combinations. Excess neutrons make the system unstable and it would make
transitions to lower mass nuclei by emitting neutrons.
It is of interest to examine the consequences of charge symmetry and charge independence in some
detail.

15

It should of interest to note that the question of two-body versus three-body forces seems to be with
us since Newtonian times. Considering three body system such as Earth-moon-sun or earth-moonsatellite, one asks if the Gravitational potential warrants a three-body potential. To my knowledge, this
is an unsettled question. The problem is more complicated in nuclear physics.
16
In quantum chromodynamical description, strong forces are color blind.
32

Chapter 6.

Hadron Structures

Soon after the beams of pions became available, experiments with hydrogen target were carried out.
The hydrogen bubble chambers were workhorses, as they served the purpose of both target and
detector simultaneously. An important consequence of these measurements was the identification of
several resonances in Nsystem. The structures were observed in elastic scattering and also inelastic
processes such as N N. Angular distribution measurements allow one to determine the spin and
parities of resonances. Also, in many cases one can assign the isospin of resonances. For example, a
resonance in
or
system has
. While one cannot unambiguously assign isospin of
resonance in
or
channels, a comparison with the corresponding channels renders the
assignment possible. Indeed, many resonances of
are found and for historical resonances, they
are called (delta) resonances, while the
are labeled as N* (N-star) resonances. Also,
resonance involving strangeness were found, such as (1116) (
) and multiplet of
(1193) (
) and (
), etc. Prior to the advent of quark-model, a
schematic organization of these resonances17 in terms of octet and decuplets etc was made, which helps
to identify them as members of multiplets with predictable properties.

The figure above shows what is known as baryon octet. The Y-axis represents the strangenessquantum number. The two nucleons corresponding to
and
appear as pair at the two
vertices of the top horizontal line. They are respectively of uud and udd quark configurations.
For
, with one strange(s) quark there are two families: an isosinglet of mass = 1116 MeV
and it is electrically neutral of uds quark configurationand isospin-triplet [uusudsanddds with charge states +, 0 and , respectively.
All these four particles are indicated on the middle horizontal line, with (+)ve charge on the right
vertex, negative charge on the left vertex and two neutrals ( and ) at the center of the diagram.
Then, there is the cascade particle-pair [0(1315) - uss and (1321) - dss] corresponding to double
strangeness (
).
17

Particle physicists refer to narrow resonances and particles as synonyms. Nuclear physicists do not
consider resonances as particles, but rather as excitations of multi-particle configurations.
33

It is important to note that change in strangeness of one unit corresponds to mass shift of about 170
MeV, while changing from u quark to d quark amounts an energy difference of 4-6 MeV, except for
the nucleons where the change is only 1.8 MeV.
The Delta isobars with other strange baryons form a multiplet of ten which is known as baryon
decuplet.

The decuplet is made up of four Delta particles (four charge states and ), three sigma
particles(), two cascade particles s (,) and one omega . An important success of
this classification was that the mass of was predicted in this simplistic picture and it was
subsequently discovered.
is an empirical equation which characterizes this multiplet.

34

This event completely characterizes the production and decay of in proton and Kcollisions. The
particle is produced in strangeness conserving strong interaction process. The later stages involve
both weak process and electromagnetic interactions as specified below:
p + K + K+ + Ko
0
,
p decays
e+e-

(S = 0 strong interaction)
(S = 1 weak interaction)
(S = 1 weak interaction)
(S= 1 weak interaction)
(electromagnetic interaction)

The mass of is given by the invariant mass of p, -, e+, e-. Frank Close aptly calls this bubble
chamber picture as physicists' Monalisa.
Problem: Write down the analytical expression to reconstruct the mass of in this reaction. Assume,
the target proton is at rest in the laboratory and Kbeam of energy EK- traverses through the hydrogen
bubble chambers.
The quark model offers an excellent description of the configurations of the octet and decuplet
schemes in terms of isospin lowering and raising operators along a horizontal line for fixed strangeness
family. The changes of one unit in strangeness and one half-unit isospin are achieved by replacing a u
quark by s quark. The is a purely strange baryon with
.
In addition to these baryon multiplets, there is a meson nonet.

The above figure represents the members of

, 0 and
mesons. K+(493.7) and K0(497.6) are
doublet of strangeness
. They are of configurations and , respectively. The middle
line represents the four non-strange (
) mesons. The three members of isospin triplet of -mesons
[+(139.6), (139.6), 0(135.0)] and iso-spinglet (547.8) meson. As before, the and mesons
are indicated at the right and left vertices with neutral mesons at the center.
Finally, the bottom line represents the
,
doublet of K 0 and K mesons at the right and
left vertices. The K 0 and K doublet are also anti-particles of K0 and K+ mesons, respectively. We
discuss the K-mesons in more detail later as we embark on CP violation. The nonet is complete if we
include the (958) iso-singlet meson at the center alongwith the other two neutral mesons (see
below).

35

A group theoretical description of these structures was offered, with baryons as three-quark states
involving u, d and s quark states and the mesons as quark-antiquark combinations.
We shall discuss the baryon decuplet in some detail. The occurrence of ++ and non-strange baryons
(
) states suggests uuu and ddd quark-structures
as the lowest energy
and
respectively to them, with all the three quarks in 1s1/2 configuration. This would necessitate that we put
three quarks of same flavor (up or down) in 1s1/2, in apparent violation of Pauli exclusion principle. To
avoid this problem, one introduces an additional degree of freedom, peculiar to quarks and the strong
interaction carriers, viz. gluons. It is called color degree of freedom18. According to this, quarks and
gluons come in three colors i.e. red, green and blue. Hadrons are color-singlets, such that they do not
carry any overall color. A baryon is made up of three quarks, each carrying a color different from the
other two and a meson is made up of a pair of quark-antiquark of the same type of color-anticolor
combination.
Accordingly, the proton structure of up (u), up(u) , and down(d) quark, will yield a more complicated
configuration. Pauli exclusion principle requires that the overall wavefunctions of baryons area
antisymmetric under exchange of two quarks.
In the above diagrams, without concerning the color degree of freedom, we impose that baryons in a
family have the same symmetry property. The baryon at the extreme edges of decuplet ++(uuu), (ddd) and - (sss) are of identical particles and thus they are symmetric under exchange of particles.
We prescribe that the same symmetry holds for all baryons, with color degrees being antisymmetric
under exchange of particles.
We may then build the members of the same strangeness by isospin lowering or raising operations.
We build members of different strangenesses by replacing the up or down quarks by the strange
quarks.
Problem: Construct the wavefunctions of the members of the baryon decuplet.
For the baryon octet and decuplet, one sees that the mass change as due to strangeness change is
simply due to mass of strange quark and then arrive at a mass formula. We have mass differences
M= 152 MeV, M= 149 MeV and M= 139MeV. One could say Ms = 146 6 MeV. We might
extend this argument for baryon octet to deduce the s-quark mass. We have mass differences MN =
177 MeV and M= 202 MeV.
Clearly, the results for s-quark mass are not consistent. The mass differences are not simply due to
strange-quark mass. It has to do with changes in isospin too. Furthermore the hypercharge changes,
which are due to changes in strangeness may require a bit more complicated formula for masses. A
very good description was found in
[ (

(6.1)

18

The mathematical theory thus formulated is called Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) and is
considered to be the theory of strong interactions, on the same footing as Quantum Electro Dynamics
(QED) for electromagnetic interactions. For practical calculations, one resorts to several
approximations known as Perturbative QCD, Chiral Perturbation, Lattice QCD etc..
36

where, as is obvious, M0, M1 and M2 are three constants, which can be determined for the two families.
Above, as usual, Y is the hypercharge and I is the isospin of the baryon. This empirical equation is
known as Gellmann-Okubo formula. While it fits the experimental data, no physical insight is gained.
Meson nonet:
Mesons are quark-antiquark pairs. We need to know the result of symmetry under particle
antiparticle exchange. We are basically concerned with the result of charge conjugation, which changes
| ?
a quark to an antiquark is | | or |
We take guidance from conventions used in the nucleon antinucleon charge conjugation. A proton
of positive charge under charge conjugation becomes | | and a neutron | | . It is easier
to remember that
(6.2)
|
( )
|
here we note that a particle of |
|

antiparticle, while particle of

antiparticle, under charge conjugation.

The isospin projections are I3= 1/2 for u and and I3= 1/2 for and d. From this convention, we have
|
| and | | .
We should also remember that anti-fermions have intrinsic parity of sign opposite to that the conjugate
fermions. With this information, we are ready to write down the configurations of pseudoscalar mesons
of
. It is of interest to note that model naturally accommodates the negative parity of pions.
Meson

I
1
1

I3
1

One anticipates that the wavefunction

Wavefunction

) orthogonal to 0 wavefunction represents a

physical state. It is easy to verify that this configuration is an isosinglet of

19

This configuration corresponds to a single pseudoscalar meson of

and mass 547.8 MeV and it
is known as meson. Thus the u, d base of quark configurations accounts for the 4-pseudoscalar
mesons, three among them (+, and 0) as members of isospin triplet and as the isospin singlet
member.
If we include the strange quark (s) into the family, we will have 32=9 mesons, which belong to the
meson nonet scheme. There are 4 strange mesons (
) of isospin 1/2. They are
( ),
( ),
( ), ( ) mesons we have encountered before.
19

Remember the quantum mechanical operations

|

(
|
(

)|
(

))|

37

In addition one can make a non-strange meson of

,
with configuration. One can write it

as (
). A meson of mass 958 MeV, known as ', is identified with this configuration.

The and ' mesons have same quantum numbers. The only difference between them is their masses.
Their wavefunctions must be orthogonal. This is achieved by writing the wavefunction of -meson as

(
). The inclusion of s quarks modifies the description of -meson. Thus, the quark

model accommodates the SU(3) scheme of meson-nonet.

Vector Mesons: The meson nonet, described above, was made up of
quark-antiquark pairs with
spins oppositely oriented. One anticipates
meson-nonet with parallel orientations of the spins.
Nine candidates are identified and quark-model provides a satisfactory description. The members of
this nonet are K*, , , and mesons. Here K* come as two isospin doublets, mesons are isospin
triplet and the and are two singlets.
The meson spectroscopy becomes too complicated or enriched, it depends on one's own views, as we
introduce the charm(c) quarks and bottom quarks. We should mention two characteristic features. One
is the occurrence of J/ resonance at 3097 MeV of configuration and its partners and the other is
the (upsilonium) resonance at 9460 MeV as of configurations. Currently, the charm quark is
assigned a mass of 1.15-1.35 GeV, while the bottom quark is of 4.6-4.9 GeV. These mesons were
discovered as resonances in electron-positron collisions in 1970s and they constitute the first evidences
for the existence of charm and bottom quarks, respectively. The evidence for top quark, claimed by
Fermi lab groups in Chicago, came in 1994 from experiments involving proton-antiproton collisions20.
The current estimate of mass of top quark is 175 GeV.
As an aside, we should mention that this picture is known naive-quark model. One wonders about the
following questions:
a) Why are baryons made up of multiple of three-quarks? Why not a 5-quark (more correctly 4
quark-1 antiquark) and other combinations?
b) Why are mesons pairs of one quark and an antiquark ? Why not 4-quark( 2 quark-2 antiquark)
combinations?
c) Is there matter made up of simply gluons and no quarks (glue balls, or gluonium)?
d) Are there hybrid structures, combinations of two or more of the above possibilities?
In year 2003, there were two claims, one about the observation of a penta-quark as an exotic baryon
and also an exotic meson as 4 quark structures. These observations, especially the penta-quark, still
await confirmation. The structure arguments as exotica also need to be ascertained beyond doubt,
namely one has to make sure that there are no other possible interpretations. The experimnetal
questions may be settled in near future. The theoretical understanding, if the experimental signals
persist, will take longer.

20

It is of interest to note that colliders involving particle-antiparticle collisions offer some advantages
in discovering new physics. For one thing, all additive quantum numbers such as the total baryon
number, lepton number etc. are zero. Thus, the entire center of mass energy is available to create other
particle-antiparticle pairs.
38

Problem: For N scattering, write the wavefunctions in isospin formalism, for the three charge states
of pions and N as neutron and proton, respectively. As the scattering cross section is proportional to
the square of matrix element of the overlap of initial and final wave functions, calculate the ratios of
scattering cross sections of all N channels relative to +p cross section. Make use of the fact that
isospin is conserved in strong interactions.

39

Chapter 7.

Yukawa's theory of Meson Exchange Forces

In 1932, Yukawa proposed that nucleon-nucleon interactions are mediated by exchange of particles of
finite mass. The exchange particles are Bosons to satisfy spin-statistics. He estimated the mass of
mesons from Klein-Gordon equation and the observation that nuclear forces are of short range (a few
femto meters). We will present a simple derivation here.
For a particle of mass m, momentum and energy , the relativistic equation is
By noting
, we can write Klein-Gordon equation as

.
(7.1)

As our problem concerns the static potential resulting in the nuclear binding through exchange
mechanism, we may drop the time-dependent term. Also, as the problem is one of central forces (no
angular dependence), we seek the solution for the radial part of the wavefunction. This is written as
( )

( )

(7.2)

The solution for this equation is

( )

(7.3)

here, is a strength constant, which is specific to each interaction. The parameter , known as the
Compton wavelength21 of a particle of mass m, is the range of interaction involving the exchange of
particles of mass , or
, with as the range. It is easy to verify that, according to this
theory, interaction ranges of a femto meters require particles of mass of about 100-200 MeV.
Soon after Yukawa published his theory, Wick presented a simple argument in terms of Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle. According to this principle,
. In the time T, the maximum
separation between interacting partners is less than
, where is range of interaction.
Also,
and we get the result
. Since then, this relation has been used as guide
to estimate range of interaction versus mass of exchange particles.
I would like to add that these arguments should be considered as simple guides but one should not take
them literally. If particles satisfy the above uncertainty as an equality, the masses are relativistic and
they are not rest masses. However, it is quite impressive that this phenomenology works so well.

21

The Compton wavelength

scattering.

appears as proportionality constant in the kinematics of Compton

40

Chapter 8.

Weak Interactions

Weak interaction was introduced to describe the nuclear beta decay processes. Later on, it was found
that several particles decay via weak interaction processes. For example,
and

are weak decays. The weak decays have revolutionized our concepts regarding the symmetries and
conservations principles.
One can identify three types of nuclear beta decays:

The electron and positron emission are accompanied by an antineutrino and neutrino, respectively.
The third mode is an electron capture process where a nucleus absorbs an atomic electron, instead of
emitting a positron and neutrino. The EC decay is energetically possible if
, while the
positron emission needs
. Thus, whenever positron emission is possible, electron
capture is energetically allowed. This decay is commonly found for heavy nuclei, where atomic
electrons tend to get closer to the nucleus.
Prior to the discovery of neutrinos, the following observations suggested that a particle devoid of
charge and negligible mass should be present.
i) The electrons are not mono-energetic. Instead, the energy spectrum was continuous, with a
maximum kinetic energy of E M X MY M . Simultaneous energy-momentum conservation
requires a third particle in the final state. The third particle cannot be very massive, due to the energy
considerations. It carries no electric charge.
In the early days of beta decay studies, the beta energy spectrum was a big puzzle. Some notable
physicists thought this may be a hint of failure of energy conservation principle in the microscopic
world.
ii) As particle is a Fermion of spin 1/2 and both X and Y are either Bosons of integer spins or
Fermions of half-integer spins, spin-statistics conservation requires that there should be another
Fermion, besides electron, in the final state.
In 1932, Pauli hypothesized neutrino to rescue the energy conservation principle. It was nearly 20
years later, the existence of neutrino was firmly established. The experiment was carried out by C.L.
Cowan and F. Reines. Reines received 1995 Nobel prize for physics22.
The basic idea is the following. Reactors are sources of a large flux of neutrons, which beta decay
n p . If we can get the antineutrinos from these decays to be captured by protons in
hydrogenous medium such as proton, we will have a neutron and a positron as final products. The
positrons will annihilate with electrons to yield two photons of 0.511 MeV each.
22

See F. Reines, The Neutino: From Poltergeist to particle, Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1995
41

If we pass the neutrons in a medium which has large absorption cross section for neutrons, we will
observe many photons with a total energy of about 8 MeV. The signal is the two 0.511 MeV photons,
which will be accompanied by a cascade of photons of total energy 8 MeV and delayed by a few
microseconds, the time it takes for neutrons to slow down to thermal energies and get captured.
The experiment consisted of a using a water tank to which they added CdCl2 solution. The water acts
as a source of protons for antineutrino capture and it also serves as moderator of neutrons. This
experiment was carried out in early 1950s, about 20 years after the Pauli's neutrino hypothesis.

Fermi's theory of Nuclear decay: Fermi was the first to offer a theory of nuclear beta decay. We
categorize beta decays into a few types based on the selection rules of angular momentum and parity.
It turns out that decays involving large changes in angular momenta between the parent and daughter
nuclear states are slower processes. The table below shows the first few types of decay, selection rules,
approximate ranges of log
values of the decays, which are measures of allowedness of the decays.
Smaller
values are more favored than the larger
values.
Type
Fermi
Gamow-Teller

J (Ji-Jf)
0
0, 1 no 00

Parity change
(=if)
No
No

3
3-5
42

First forbidden
Unique first forbidden
Second forbidden

1
2
2

Yes
Yes
No

5-7
7-9
7-9

One measures momentum spectrum (remember your modern physics laboratory experiment) of the
beta particles. Theory attempts to describe the spectrum shape and deduce physics parameters. The
starting point is Fermi's golden rule, which states that the transition probability that an electron of a
specific energy is emitted is given by
(8.1)

| |

In the above equation, is constant, which a measure of the weak interaction. dN/dE is the phase
space factor, which depends simply on the number of available states. dW is the transition rate to final
states with electron energies between Ee and Ee+dE. The nuclear physics and dynamics is contained in
the square of the matrix element. The Fermi theory makes a simple approximation that the |M|2 =1.
The dN/dE may be written as23
(

(8.2)

We have the dependence on the momentum of unobserved neutrino on the right hand side of the
equation, which we should get rid of. We achieve it from the following reasoning. On the right hand
side, the differentiation is with respect to variation of the end-point energy. The double integral is
integration over the electron and neutrino momenta and directions. When we measure the electron
spectrum, we fix the energy of electrons. Also, since the daughter nucleus is much heavier than the
electron and neutrino, the energy released is carried by these two particles. Or, E0 Ee E . For fixed
dp
1 dE 1
;
electron energies, dE0 dE . For massless neutrinos, p c E ;
dE0 c dE0 c
(

(8.3)

Integrating over the solid angles, we get 162 in the numerator.

We have then,
| |
1/2

dW
or 2

pe dpe

(8.4)

const M E0 Ee

One introduces an extra factor to account for the Coulomb effects on the beta spectrum. One writes this
function as F(,Z,Ee), called Fermi function. Clearly this function depends on whether it is or
decay, the atomic number of daughter nucleus and also on the energy of electron at the emission. For
23

This expression is found in any statistical physics books. Simply, 4 p2dp/h3 is the no. of states, in a
shell of thickness dp and inner radius p and h3 is the unit cell volume. Here we are writing for two
species, i.e., electrons and neutrinos, which then fixes the entire kinematics.
43

positron emission, the effect is to accelerate them in the repulsive Coulomb field and thus shift the
spectrum to higher momenta. For electrons, the attractive force slows them down and the spectrum is
shifted to lower energies. A plot of the variable on the LHS versus the electron energy is made. Such
graph is called Fermi-Kurie plot. If the matrix element is independent of electron energy, it is a straight
line of negative slope and it is zero at Ee=E0.
We integrate over the momentum spectrum of electrons to get the total transition probability
| |

(8.5)

If we set F(,Z,E) = 1 and E0 = cpmax, a good approximation for small Z and large energies, the integral
becomes
pmax

1
E05
3
30c
0
Even though the exact evaluation of the integral is tedious and one cannot solve it exactly, the
numerical evaluations of the integrals for various Z and E0 are extensively tabulated. In standard
convention, the integral is rewritten as

pmax

pe2 E0 Ee dpe
2

, Z, E pe2 E0 Ee dpe f E0 me5 c 7

2

where f(E0) is a dimension-less parameter. Collecting the above results, we have

| |

(8.6)

As we see above, the square of the matrix element is inversely proportional to

, where the
proportionality constant, being ratio of universal constants, is independent of the parent/daughter
nuclei and electron/neutrino energies etc. This relation is useful only for the allowed decays, where the
matrix element does not depend on kinematical factors such as kinetic energies of electrons and
neutrinos etc. For higher order decays, one still refers to
values, but the proportionality constant is
very much different from the above relation. One usually tabulates
, rather than . It causes no
problem since t1/2 =0.693 .
What is the mass of neutrino?
Following Fermi, particle physics community assumed the neutrino's mass to be zero for a very long
time. However, two questions lingered. The first one is if neutrino's mass is identically equal to zero or
is it small but of finite value? Secondly, is the neutrino its own anti-particle or are the neutrino and
anti-neutrino two distinct particles, as we commonly assume.
Associated with the three generations of charged leptons (e, and ) are three neutrinos (e, and
). Till very recently, they were considered to be quite distinct from each other and only upper limits
24

The muon (, m= 105 MeV/c2), charged lepton of second generation was discovered in cosmic
rays in early 1930s and it was initially mis-identified as a meson, sought as the candidate for Yukuwa's
theory. The fact that it travels long distances in the atmosphere without interacting and also that the
interactions in the detector volumes, except for ionization trail, indicated that muons are not strongly
interacting particles, but that they are leptons.
44

On the masses of the three neutrino types are known.

A very popular method to attempt to measure the electron neutrino mass is to make a Fermi-Kurie plot
of an allowed decay for which the matrix element is unity and E0 is small. If the mass of electron
neutrino is non-zero, the Q-value of decay is reduced to, say,
and thus the plot goes to
zero at Q' instead of at E0. Needless to say, these are very difficult experiments. Two things work
against them. First, the neutrino mass, if finite, is very small and we are looking for very small effect.
Also, at the end point, the intensity is very low and thus the statistical errors are quite large. Several
dedicated measurements were made and the investigations are still on-going.
A favorite candidate for these measurements is triton decay.
3
3

Q 19keV, T1/2 12.33years

1 H 2 He
One of the main reasons is that the E0 of about 18 keV is among the lowest Q-values and thus one
would expect a high sensitivity to finite neutrino mass at the end point of the spectrum. Thus far, the
experiments provide only an upper limit on the mass of this particle. The current estimate of electron
neutrino mass is m< 2 eV/c2. As we assume, in accord with present-day observations, that the three
types of neutrinos (electron, muon, tau types) are distinct25, the beta decay experimental results refer
only to the electron neutrinos.
Parity Non-conservation in weak interactions:
We mentioned before that pions are pseudoscalar mesons of negative parity with J = 0. In the early
1950s, it was known that of the strange mesons (K-mesons), some decayed by emitting two pions,
while some others decayed by emitting 3 pions. This observation remained a puzzle for sometime.
T.D. Lee and C. N. Yang analyzed the problem and concluded that it may be an indication of parity
non-conservation in the weak interactions and suggested experiments to test this possibility.
Conceptually, there is a simple way to test a symmetry principle. Find an observable which changes
sign under the symmetry operation. If the symmetry is good, the expectation value of this observable is
zero. The angular momentum is an axial vector, as cross product of two vectors, it does not change
sign under parity operation. The momentum is simple vector, which changes sign under parity. Let us
now ask a question, how many particles are emitted along the angular momentum vector direction of
the emitting nucleus, compared to those which are emitted anti-parallel to it?
We are comparing the intensities ( ) versus (
). If parity is good, the system would not
distinguish the sign change and we should find the intensities in both cases to be the same. If we find
the intensities in the two measurements are different, it constitutes parity breakdown. Momentum
direction is known to us, it is simply the direction of flight of an electron. How do we know the
direction of orientation of angular momentum of emitting nucleus? In the absence of external magnetic

The tau lepton (, m = 1,777.8 MeV/c2), charged lepton of third generation was discovered in
electron-positron collisions at Stanford Linear Accelerator in 1975 by Martin Perl and his
collaborators.
25

In recent years, there have been experimental indications of neutrino oscillations from
SuperKamiokande and K2K. They refer to disappearance of muon type neutrinos into others.
45

fields, the angular momenta of nuclei are oriented randomly and external fields tend to align them
through the magnetic interactions.
If we label the energy of all levels in the field-free case as E0, they are shifted by

( )
( )

(8.7)

( )

(8.8)

( )
( )

( )

(8.9)

The level-splitting can be varied by changing the strength and sign (+ve or -ve) of magnetic field.
Positive fields increase the energies of negative projections and decrease the energies of positive
projections. Negative fields have the opposite effect.
Also, at very low temperatures the lowest energy levels are populated, which correspond to parallel
(for B positive) or anti-parallel (for B negative) alignment of angular momentum with respect to
magnetic field direction. If we put a source in a magnetic field and measure the electron intensities
along the field axis for both signs of field, we should see no difference in counting rates if parity is a
good quantum number. A finite difference in count-rates, as the magnetic field sign is changed, signals
parity break-down.
Co-60 was chosen as the candidate source, because of its magnetic properties, long half-life (5 years).
To align the source with moderate magnetic fields, one has to cool the source to very low
temperatures. The experiment was carried out by C. S. Wu and collaborators. They cooled the source
to 0.01K and subjected it to external magnetic field. They set up a detector to measure the number of
electrons as one flipped the magnetic field direction to be parallel and anti-parallel to the electron
momentum direction. They also measured these distributions at higher temperatures. There was a
distinct correlation in the number of counts and magnetic field direction at low temperatures and it
vanished at higher temperatures. This observation was consistent with parity violation in the nuclear
beta decays. The parity non-conservation in weak interactions is now an accepted fact. (figure from
Frauenfelder and Henley).
We should write the asymmetries in a mathematical form to extract physics. To start with, note that
the intensity may be written as
(8.10)
where is a measure of the polarization of emitted particles, responsible for the measured
asymmetries. I are count rates for two polarities ( and ) of the magnetic fields. We replaced by
the spin of electron, and introduced
in the denominator to render dimensionless. The
polarization, or helicity, is determined from the normalized asymmetry as
I I
p
v
A H
I I
E
c
where we used the relativistic relation
and the fact '' matrices are of determinant 1.
Experiments showed that '' is
and
for positron and electron emission, respectively. It means
that electrons and positrons are polarized in the longitudinal direction. It would mean that the neutrinos
are also polarized.
46

The parity breakdown is attributed to the inherent property of neutrinos. Neutrinos have their spin
oriented anti-parallel to their momentum direction and anti-neutrinos spin is along the direction of
motion. This is what we call helicity or handedness of neutrinos. Neutrinos are left-handed and antineutrinos are right-handed.
How to measure the helicity of neutrino? A classic experiment was performed by Goldhaber and
collaborators in 1957. We are setting out to determine polarization of a neutral particle which will not
be detected. If we work with decays, we will have a three-body final state of which only electron is
detected. The neutrino usually escapes detection and the residual nucleus, being at least 2000 times as
heavy as electron, hardly moves. So, we should find other ways. Goldhaber et al. found that electron
capture decays offers an interesting option. We have to reason through conservation principles of
momenta and angular momentum and a bit of physics to appreciate this experiment. Follow the
reasoning below:
As we mentioned earlier, whenever + is energetically allowed, electron capture (EC) is also possible.
In case of EC, the final state is a two body state as the decay is (Z,A) (Z-1,A) + . The neutrino and
the residual nucleus will fly in opposite directions. As we start with unpolarized parent nucleus, the
polarization of neutrino is opposite to that of the daughter nucleus. If we can measure the polarization
of nucleus, we can deduce the polarization of neutrino. However, the residual nucleus is not detected.
If the nucleus emits a photon and we find a decay scheme where the nucleus polarization is transferred
to photon, then we have a chance to measure the nuclear polarization. But, if a photon is emitted in
random direction, how do we know its direction with respect to the flight direction of recoil nucleus?
We know that a photon emitted by a moving source is doppler shifted. If it is emitted along the
direction of motion of nucleus, it is blue-shifted and it is red-shifted if it is emitted opposite to the
direction of recoil nucleus. A blue-shifted photon can be absorbed by a nucleus identical to the
daughter nucleus, while the red-shifted photon cannot do that. Now, one has to find a system which
satisfies these physics conditions.
Goldhaber26 and collaborators identified one such case. It is the electron capture decay of 152Eum. The
meta stable state of 152Eu at excitation energy 45.6 keV is of zero spin. As the ground state is of spinparity , the deexcitation of 45.6 keV level by photon emission is very much suppressed. The 152Eum
decays by capture of an atomic electron, emits a neutrino and populates an excited state of 152Sm of
excitation energy 960 keV and angular momentum one which, subsequently, decays to the ground
state of 152Sm, also of zero spin, by photon emission. So, we start and end with nuclear systems of zero
spin and thus the neutrino and photon carry opposite polarizations. If we let the photons be incident on
a sample of 152Sm, only those photons emitted along the direction of recoil nucleus, and hence opposite
to the neutrino direction, will be able to excite 152Sm to the 960 keV level. In this arrangement, the
photon helicity is same as that of neutrino. To determine the polarization of photons, we let them pass
through magnetized iron. The electrons in the iron are polarized. If photon polarization is opposite to
that of electrons in iron, the electrons will have their spins flipped by photon scattering, and the photon
loses energy and it cannot excite the 152Sm. If they are parallel, then no energy loss occurs. The
photons will excite the 152Sm. The count-rate variation as magnetic field direction is changed from
positive to negative. Goldhaber et al. find that the photon has negative helicity and thus they conclude
that neutrino is also of negative helicity. The polarization vector is anti-parallel to its momentum
direction. Neutrino is said to be left-handed and anti-neutrino is right-handed.

26

M.Goldhaber, L. Grodzins and A.W.Sunyar , Physical Review 109(1957)1015.

47

0.0456 --------------- 0
0.0 ---------------- 3
152
Eu

9.31 hrs
13.5 years
960 keV ------------------ 1122 keV ------------------2+
0.0

------------------ 0+
152
Sm

48

Chapter 9.

CP Violation

Once parity breakdown is established, one wonders about other symmetries of C, P, T and CPT. In
quantum field theoretical sense, charge conjugation is particle-antiparticle transformation, though
classically it simply refers to changing the sign of electric charge. In subatomic world, we should
understand it to mean that charge conjugation changes sign of all additive quantum numbers such as
baryon number, lepton number and strangeness etc. Thus, photons and neutral mesons can be their
particle-antiparticle pairs. Neutral meson is its own anti-particle.
But, | and | are distinct and so are | and | . However, physical systems of neutral kaons
and/or neutrinos may be superpositions of these particle and anti-particle structures. More on it later.
For neutral particles, which are its own antiparticles, charge conjugation operation is an eigenvalue

operation, ie. |
|
, |
|
.
Clearly, 2=1 and thus = 1. We call this as charge parity (C-parity), analogous to intrinsic parity we
defined earlier. You would remember that we assigned intrinsic parity of nucleons to be positive and
deduced parities of other particles from reactions and decays etc. Similarly, we have to define charge
parity with respect to some particle/quantum. We recognize that electromagnetic fields change sign
under charge conjugation. Thus C-operation on electromagnetic quanta must give a negative sign. So,
photon is assigned negative C-parity. We attempt to deduce C-parities of other particles. For example
|
| . A neutral pion decays by emitting two photons. Thus, the charge parity of pion must
be positive.
If charge parity is not a good quantum number, one might find that a neutral pion decaying by emitting
odd number of photons, say, 3 photons. There have been searches to find the 3-photon decays of
neutral pions. The current estimate27 is branching ratio
, consistent with zero
branching. One will thus conclude that the charge parity is a good quantum number, at least for now.
Similarly (548) decays to two-photon final state and thus it is of C = +1.
As we noted above, the charge conjugation imposes some selection rules on the decay modes of
particles. \An interesting example is the positronium. A positronium is a bound/resonant state of
electron-positron pairs. As these particles are Fermions, each of spin 1/2, the total spin is S= 0 or 1.
The state of
is called para-positronium. It has a life-time = 0.125 ns and it decays by emitting
two photons. The state of
is called ortho-positronium. It decays to a three-photon final state and
it has life-time = 15s, about a factor of about 105 longer than the para-positronium.
We can write the overall wavefunction of the positronium as

We can derive the charge parity of the positronium system, by requiring that the overall wavefunction
should be antisymmetric under the exchange of particles, including the charge conjugation. We know
that the spin-triplet and singlet states are symmetric and anti-symmetric under exchange, a fact we can
parametrize by writing the eigenvalue as ( )
for spin function. The spatial part is given by the
orbital angular momentum, and it is ( ) .
The overall symmetry of positronium is given by
27

See Review of Particle Physics, Particle Data group, July 2004.

49

( ) ( )
The orbital angular momentum
for both ortho- and para-positronium. Thus, for orthopositronium (
),
and for para-positronium (
),
. The ortho-postronium
decays by emitting three photons, while the para-positronium emits two photons. Thus
and
.
We thus conclude that the overall wavefunction is anti-symmetric, as it should be, under the exchange
of two identical fermions. The fact that positron and electron are particle-antiparticles is taken into
account in C-operation. This reasoning is analogous to isospin argument of nucleons.
G-Parity:
The eigen functions of C-operation are limited to neutral Bosons with all additive quantum numbers
zero. G-Parity operator is a simple extension of this operator. It is defined as G C ei I2
In the above, ei I2 is rotation by 180 degrees around I2 axis in isospin space. The rotation amounts to
flipping the isospin projection
to
. The operation C changes the charge sign, if non-zero.
Thus, it changes
to . The overall operation is effectively changing a particle into its anti-particle
and changing back to a particle. The eigen value for this operation is 1. Accordingly, we will say the
G-parity is +ve or -ve for a particle. To proceed, we recognize that ei I2 is rotation in isospin space and
that its effect on the wavefunction is to change
and
and leave as it is. It amounts to
. To evaluate this effect, we may consider the state with
and find the
effect on a system of isospin . Since strong interactions are charge independent, our conclusions will
hold for the other charge states also. For
, the change of
has no effect and the change of
, simply yields a phase of ( ) .
We have G 0 C 0 0 and G C m . G-parity of the charged pion
is not unambiguously determined. However, one makes a rule that all mesons of same family have the
same G-parity and thus assign -ve G-parity for the -mesons. A look at the particle data book reveals
that the quantum numbers IG (JP) are assigned for each light unflavored meson with S=C=B=0. The
charge parity is also specified for the neutral mesons among them.
I

Turning to neutrinos, the C operation would change a neutrino to its antineutrino, but nothing else
should change. We noted that neutrino is left-handed and C operation would yield a left-handed antineutrino. However, left-handed antineutrinos do not exist. Thus, the charge conjugation is not obeyed.
Nevertheless, a combined operation of CP on neutrino will change it to anti-neutrino and also flip its
helicity to give right-handed antineutrino. Thus, CP is conserved.
So, to say, operation of either C or P alone on the neutrinos does not yield a physical state, but the
combined operation results in one. One may visualize it in the following way
p

50

In the top left-hand corner, we have the physical neutrino, which is left-handed. A parity operation will
make it a non-physical right-handed neutrino, which does not exist. If we do a charge conjugation, the
result would be a left-handed anti-neutrino, shown in the bottom left, which is also unphysical.
However a CP or PC operation, would result in a right-handed anti-neutrino, the physical object.
This is how, physicists reconciled with the idea of P and C breakdown in weak decays and
conservation of T and CP and CPT.
Neutral Kaons:
First, we shall mention that 0s are eigen states of C, P and CP.
P| 0 > = | 0 >; C | 0 > =| 0 > and thus PC | 0 > = | 0 >.
We have noted earlier that K 0 and K0 are distinct and thus they are not eigen states of C operation.
Are the two types of neutral kaons the pure K0 type or some other structures? It was very quickly
recognized that physical kaons, call them KS and KL, for short-lived neutral kaon and long-lived
neutral kaon respectively, may neither be K0 nor K 0 , but a linear combination of them.
From the two pure configurations, we can make two states and it perfectly fits our need. Thus write
1
Ks
K0 K0
2
1
KL
K0 K0
2
The KS decays by emitting two neutral pions and it has positive parity, while K L decays by emitting
three pions and it is of negative parity. Since | | , we have both KS and KL as eigen states of
C with an eigen value +1. Thus,
CP K K ; CP K K
s
s
L
L .

If the physics results remained this way, the physical kaons would be eigen states of all symmetry
operators of our interest and it would have been all fine. However, in 1964, Christenson et al28 reported

an experimental result where they observed that KL has a small, non-zero, decay branching to two
neutral pions. This publication started a new chapter in particle physics.
Their experiment consists of producing neutral kaon in a proton synchrotron (Alternate Gradient
Synchrotron) of Brookhaven laboratory. They are let to fly about 4 meters before the first collimators.
The KS and KL have lifetimes of
and
seconds, the beam is
nearly depleted of the Ks. There is further cleanup of the beam by magnetic fields to make sure that no
charged particles are flying along. Furthermore they put in some lead in the paths, so that any gamma
rays are stopped. Thus, one gets beam with a good amount of KL. They take advantage of the fact that
neutral kaons decay to charge pion final states, since it is lot more precise to track the momenta of
particles and detectors have close to 100% efficiency. The detectors they used were "spark chambers",
predecessors of wire chambers and drift chambers currently in use at nuclear and particle physics
laboratories. From the two invariant mass distribution of the two pions, after accounting for the
background contributions, they deduce

28

J.M. Christenson, J.W. Cronin, V.L. Fitch and R.Turlay, Physical Review Letters, 13(1964)138
51

The result leads to the conclusion that the KL has an admixture of CP positive component in its
wavefunction, which may be written as
1
KL
K 0 K 0 K 0 K 0
2
From the data, we have 2.3 103 , small but finite and it is enough to keep us busy for the last 40
years.

A phenomenological description:
The wave function of a stable particle of mass M0 may be written with a phase eiM 0 t to give a
probability of finding a particle independent of time. For unstable particles we have the uncertainty
)
relation result h , and it modifies the phase of the wavefunction to (
. As we have seen
before it satisfies the condition for a decaying state.
In our example,
we label S and L as the decay widths of short-lived (KS) and long-lived (KL) kaons

respectively. Thus, the neutral kaon wave function is written as

1
K S 0 ei M S iS /2t iK L 0 ei M L i L /2t
t

2
At time
, the wave function is an equal mixture of long and short components. As s >> L, the
short component decays fast and at longer times one expects to see only the long component, except
for the interference effects. These interference effects depends on the mass differences of Long and
Short components.
We can write the wave function in terms of K0 and K 0 , as below:
( )

[(|

| )

(|

| )

We can calculate the intensity of particles in a straight forward way to get

)

{(

) }

( )

{(

) }

(
and

The relative intensities of the K0 and K 0 vary with time and the ratio depends on the mass difference
( ) [
besides the time lapsed. The total intensity, however, decreases as ( )
], is
simply a function of the decay widths, as to be expected.
A two-state model: Two-state models are quite popular with physicists as they allow one to solve
problems in a simple way, especially as perturbation. We will first provide a general formulation and
apply it to the mixing of neutral kaon wavefunctions. This treatment is equally applicable to all those
physical systems which exhibit oscillations from one physical system to another and back as time or
distance varies.

52

Consider two stationary non-interacting, degenerate states | and | of a Hamiltonian H0. They
satisfy the following conditions.
H 0 1 E0 1 ; H 0 2 E0 2 ; 1 2 0
If we turn on the perturbative interaction, the Hamiltonian H = H0 +Hint, it will have the effect of lifting
the degeneracy and the two physical energies will be E0 E . We require these physical states to be
eigen functions of the symmetries, ie. the physical states are simultaneous eigen functions of H and a
symmetry operator, say A. the condition is [H,A] = [H0+Hint,A] = 0. The eigen functions of operator A
are either symmetric with +1 eigenvalue or antisymmetric with 1 eigenvalue. We can construct the
symmetric and anti-symmetric wave functions from the basic states as follows:
1
1
s
1 2 ; a
1 2
2
2
where the symmetry operation is prescribed as A 1 2 ; A 2 1 . Thus | and | are eigen
functions of A operator with eigen valules +1 and 1, respectively. In this construction, the interaction
|
Hint is built in such a way that it does not connect | and | , ie. | | |
. This can
be verified easily, since
s H a s HA a s A H a s H a
We may then write s H s E0 E; a H a E0 E . Thus, the interaction results in splitting
the symmetric and anti-symmetric wave functions into two distinct physical states.
Time evolution: Say, we managed to produce states corresponding to either | or | at time
.
1
To be specific, let us say, we have the state in | at
. Clearly, 1
s a , ie., it is not an
2
eigen state of symmetry operation A.
How does it evolve in time? We write the time dependent Schrdinger equation
| ( )

| ( )

As the system evolves, the physical wave function is not necessarily of equal amounts of symmetric
and antisymmetric components. Let us say, that at time t, the amplitudes are (t) and (t), respectively
such that
t t 1 t 2 ;

t t 1
2

Substituting this wave function into the time-dependent Schrdinger equation and remembering the
orthogonality of | and | , we can deduce
( )
( )
( )
( )
( )
( )
We have to set some initial conditions, assuming that the physical system is either in symmetric (
,
) or antisymmetric state (
,
) at
. If we assume the former condition, we get
E t
E t
t eiE0 t /h cos
1 i sin
2

h
h

53

Thus, the probability of finding the system in antisymmetric state is

( ). This simple model,
thus, allows for the symmetric states to oscillate into anti-symmetric state back and forth and viceversa.
Now, consider the physical production process of, say, neutral kaons, by the following reaction:
p + + K0
The strangeness conservation requires that the K0, at birth, is in sd configuration. However, this is not
a physical Kaon, as we discussed before. It transforms itself to a physical kaon as superposition of Ks
and KL of equal amplitude. The short component decays very quickly and the long component, as it
lives long, will exhibit the oscillations. In the above equations, we can set
, at the time when the
beam is fully depleted of the short component and calculate the oscillations from then on. This way,
we can accommodate the CP violation.
Neutrino oscillations: For neutrinos, similar physical reasoning may be made. Here we are concerned
about two types of oscillations: a) flavor oscillations in which neutrinos of electron, muon, and tau
types oscillate from one flavor to the other, e , and the other type is where a neutrino will
oscillate into its anti-neutrino and vice-versa. The neutrino oscillations were first proposed as a
possible solution for what was dubbed as "Solar Neutrino Problem". This problem refers to an
observation that the neutrino flux from Sun was estimated to be a factor of two less than the standard
solar model prediction. The recent experiments in Japan using Kamiokande detector seems to have
settled this problem with the suggestion that the neutrinos do oscillate and thus electron neutrinos on
earth surface seem to be fewer than what they should be if oscillations do not occur. These oscillations
are flavor oscillations and the other type ( ) are yet to be found. The neutrino oscillations
between two flavors is sensitive to the difference in masses of the two types of neutrinos, and not the
absolute masses of the particles. A mathematical formulation, very similar to what we have done
above, would give the basic physics. Be reminded, however, accurate calculations are very much more
involved than we indicate here.
Time Reversal: The time reversal operation is replacing by . This is different from time
translation operation, which is a series of infinitesimal operations to make a system evolve from one
time to another. Unlike the C and P symmetries, the time reversal symmetries is a symmetry in
classical physics too. For example, the Newton's law,
, is a second order differential equation
in time and it does not change sign for
. This feature, that +ve and -ve times cannot be
distinguished is known as microscopic reversibility.
[
]
When we write the Lorentz Force equation
, we find that the symmetry
properties of and must be different under time reversal. The force equation indicates that does
not change sign under time reversal. As the velocity changes sign. So should change sign under
time reversal. In the microscopic picture of electricity and magnetism, we describe the electric fields as
due to stationary charges and magnetic fields as due to currents or moving charges. This description is
consistent with the time reversal invariance or microscopic reversibility.
There were a few concerns with the concept of microscopic reversibility. First and foremost is the
sense of time direction. If the force direction or acceleration is insensitive to sign of time, how does a
system a know in which way to evolve ie., future or past? While this may look like a trivial question,
one would ask, in the cosmological picture of big bang all we had at the beginning was energy. If
54

energy converts to material medium, then matter and antimatter must be in equilibrium. How is then
the universe matter dominated? Sakharov29 postulated three conditions for the baryogenesis: a) arrow
of time b) CP violation and c) T-violation.
The time reversal operator is unlike others, in the sense it does not represent conserved quantities. The
reason is that the time operator is not unitary but it is anti-unitary. We shall describe this below. We
know T, as symmetry operator, satisfies the commutator [H,T] = 0. An attempt to find a solution of the
type T t t would not be correct as we can see below. The commutator relation implies
( )
( )
( )
For T t t , we will have
( )
( )

(
(

)
)

. This equation differs from the

( )

in form as it has an extra negative sign. So, it does not satisfy form-invariance ie., the time-

reversed and untransformed equations do not have the same sign. Try to use a wave function
t eiEt /h . The original state and time-reversed state will have opposite signs for the energy eigen
values.
Wigner suggested the trick to overcome this problem. The time reversal operation is a complex
conjugation along with sign change for time. i.e. T t * t . It then satisfies the relation
( )
( )
( )
( )
T operation does not represent an eigen value problem. Thus, there are no conserved quantities
associated with it. However, there are several physical observables which can be used to test time
reversal symmetry.
Note worthy among is the detailed balance of forward-backward reactions. In a process a b c d ,
the time reversal invariance requires that the cross sections for forward and backward reaction at the
same center of mass energy, should be identical, after the kinematical factors are taken into
consideration. Several experiments were conducted to test this and all with negative result, except for
once a while excitement of evidences to the contrary. There are also theorems known as polarizationanalyzing power of reactions, based on time reversal symmetry.
More importantly, based on Yang's idea that a symmetry is testable with the observables which change
sign under symmetry operation must be zero. Several decay triple correlations in nuclear decays
and polarizations in particle decays have been carried out. So far, the results are negative. No time
reversal invariance violation (T-violation for short) is observed. The only experiment which showed a
positive T-violation is again neutral kaons.
Another aspect of time reversal concerns the concept of particles and their antiparticles. A time
dependent free-particle wave function may be written as t ei px Et and t ei px E(t ) .
Clearly, we can see that if ( ) is a positive energy wave function of a particle with momentum ,
( ) is a negative energy solution corresponds to particle momentum . Thus, ( ) and ( )
correspond to wave functions of a particle and antiparticle, respectively. Time reversal symmetry
implies particle-antiparticle symmetry.
29

Andrei Sakharov, a well known nuclear physicist from Russia, won a Nobel Peace prize in 1975.
55

Chapter 10. Electro-Weak Unification

Soon after Pauli presented neutrino hypothesis, Fermi provided the first theory of -decay. His theory
is a contact interaction, in that, say, a neutron decaying into proton, electron and anti-neutrino as
n p e , it happens at one point in space, ie. a neutron is instantaneously transformed into the
final products. We might indicate this process in a symmetric, making use of the crossing relation
symmetries as n p e , which allows to represent diagrammatically as below:
p
n

Fermi was guided by the electromagnetic interaction, which is described as due to exchange of photons
between two electrically
charged bodies, represented as current-current interaction. Later on, the idea
was expanded by Feynman, who introduced the diagrammatic approach. In quantum electrodynamics,
we reason that all electromagnetic interactions are mediated by photons. These photons are not real
photons, in the sense that for fixed energy , the momentum of photon
, which is dictated
by the kinematics of the overall process. A reaction or a decay process, is depicted as a space-time
diagram, with at least two vertices. At each vertex, energy-momentum conservation principles are
satisfied. The open lines are physical quanta, which satisfy the energy-momentum relations of
individual entities and they are said to be "on-mass shell". The lines between vertices either wiggly or
otherwise, they, most often, do not satisfy the energy-momentum relation, except that
.
They are said to be "off-mass shell" or virtual quanta.
At the time of Fermi's theory, all these details were not known, but the idea that EM processes could
be described as current-current interaction was understood. As Fermi was concerned with nuclear beta
decays, he considered it to be a hadronic current interaction with leptonic currents. Without worrying
about details, we can write the invariant transition amplitude for the decay as
where the j's are hadronic and leptonic currents and G is the coupling constant.
At the advent of quark model, we can redefine this process as d-quark changing to u-quark and a
lepton, and the rest of the picture is unchanged. We would seek a unified description of weak
processes, which come in various modes. Below, we list the physical process and quark model picture
of the processes of interest.
n pe
d ue
pe
s ue
0 e d ue
K 0 s u
e e

uds uud ud

We, thus, have leptons decaying into leptons. Hadrons decaying into semi-leptonic and hadronic final
states. Attempts describe the strangeness conserving (S = 0) decays and strangeness non-conserving
(S = 1) decays, resulted in the overestimation of strangeness non-conserving decay strengths by
about a factor of 40. Cabbibo offered an empirical approach to this problem, by suggesting that d and
56

s quarks are not pure configurations, but they are mixed. The simplest way to bring in the mixing,
obeying orthonormalization requirements is to use mixing angles. Thus, the first generation of quarks
u
u

is not simple but it is

d
d cosC s sin C
Where
is called Cabbibo angle.
A serious problem with the contact interactions is that they are unrenormalilzable. By this we mean
that, cross sections for certain processes increase as center of mass energy increases and eventually, we
arrive at infinities known as ultraviolet divergences. You might remember the "ultraviolet catastrophe"
for the black-body radiation. A way out is found in quantum field theory, by introducing an exchange
quantum, ie. photon exchange. In the frame work of contact interaction, a fixed coupling constant, with
a few mass parameters will not get rid of the infinities. The decay processes are fixed-energy
processes, but we have several weak interaction reactions that we can carryout in the laboratories, such
as neutrino scattering with hadrons, charge exchange reactions etc.
In weak interactions, the propagator argument amounts to introducing a vector boson as an exchange
quantum, which will introduce a multiplicative factor, commonly called a propagator term. This factor
gW2
is energy and momentum dependent and we write it as
.
M W2 q 2
The Fermi coupling constant G and the weak-coupling constant gW are simply connected by the mass
of the Weak boson through relation: gW2 GMW2 / 2 . From the knowledge of Fermi constant (G),
writing the
to be given by the electromagnetic coupling constant
MW~ 100 GeV.

, we will get

The assumption in the above argument is that, the range of interaction, is simply dictated by the mass
of exchange particle. If all exchange particles are mass-less, all the interactions would have been of
infinite range and that they would be indisitinguishable. All interactions behave alike. So, if the weak
interactions are same as electromagnetic interactions in their properties, the exchange boson which
limits the interaction range to a small fraction of femto meter, must have a mass of about 100 GeV. If
we look at the beta decay processes, we realize that the decays involve a change of charge by one unit
for the hadrons accompanied by the creation of a charged lepton. Thus, the exchange bosons are of one
unit charge. We, then, ask if the Weak interaction may proceed via exchange of a neutral boson. Call it
Z-boson for zero charge particle.
The searches for these two types of particles, vector bosons of both positive and negative charges and
also neutral boson were undertaken. In fact, the evidence for neutral currents was found in 1973,
though it was not linked to Z0 at the time of discovery. The reasoning goes as follows: Fermi theory
allows for charge currents, mediated by charged bosons, since it needs hadrons to change charge. The
charged currents allow for processes such as e e but they cannot accommodate elastic
scattering processes such as e e . This process, if happens, can only proceed through neutral
currents, because a charged current can flip the charges between leptons of same flavor, ie. processes
such as and e e are possible through charged vector boson exchange. Early searches for

57

neutral currents in decays like K e e were not successful. A successful experiment was carried
out at CERN and it was published in 197330.
The idea behind this experiment is that in the interactions induced by muon-neutrinos, a final state with
muon-neutrinos and without charged muons is possible only for neutral currents and reactions
mediated by charged currents have muons in final states. The neutrino beams in their experiment are
muon type. They were an admixture both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. One defines the events as
follows:
neutral current type: / N / hadrons
harged current type: / N / hadrons
This was a bubble chamber experiment, filled with freon gas. Their results were
NC / CC 0.21 0.03

NC / CC

0.45 0.09

a first clear indication of the neutral currents.

Prior to that Weinberg, Glashow and Salam have been putting forward electro-weak unification
schemes. They were attempting to deduce a renormalizable weak interaction theory. For EM theory,

we have the basic interaction as ie j em A , where j represents the transition from an initial state
to final state and A is the EM field.
Analogously, for a generalized electro-weak interaction, involving hypercharges and lepton currents,
one writes the basic interaction as

g' Y
ig J i Wi i
j
B
2
Here g and g' are coupling constants. Wi are the vector fields (isotriplet) and B is a single vector field

coupled to weak- hypercharge current. One can visualize the W as the three component vector with
(
) describe the two charged bosons. The W3 and B represent the two neutral

fields. We have two physical neutral fields, one yielding the EM interactions and the other weak
interactions. They are linear combinations of the W3 and B. For ortho-normalization requirements,
we may write them as
A B cosW W3 sinW
a) Massless EM field :
b) Massive Weak filed : Z B sinW W3 cosW
where

is the weak mixing angle, known as Weinberg angle.

We tried an estimate of MW in the beginning, by setting g' = e. The unification procedure results in
a somewhat different result, as . One deduces a set of simultaneous equations
g'
1
1
1
tanW ;
2 2
2
g
g
g'
e
Along with the result of for the connection between Fermi coupling constant and g, we deduce

30

F. J. Hasert et al, Gargamelle Collaboration, Physics Letters, 45B(1973) 138.

58

M W2

2 sin W G
2

and M Z2 MW2 / cos2 W

The neutral-current to charge-current event ratios could be parametrized in

neutral
1
20
R
sin 2 W sin 4 W

ch arg ed 2
27

, as follows:

neutral
1
20
R
sin 2 W sin 4 W

ch arg ed 2
9
From the neutral current data, we have a good guess on Weinberg angle and we know G from nuclear
beta decays and thus the masses of W and Z could be estimated. They were discovered in 1983.
Current values for the masses are MW= 80.42 0.038 GeV and MZ= 91.1880.002 GeV.

59

APPENDIX
Basic kinematics:
Lorentz transformation of 4-dimension vector

Lets consider 2 reference frames F and F*, F* is moving with velocity v relative to F.

The 4-d vector V can be presented by:

~
V (V0 ,Vx ,V y ,Vz )

where Vx ,V y ,Vz are 3 components of the vector V in the Cartesian coordinate system. We also have:

~
V 2 V02 Vx2 V y2 Vz2 const

Choose the z axis parallel to v , we can write the Lorentz transformation of the 4-d vector V
from F to F* in the matrix form:

V0*

V x* 0
*
V y 0
V * v
z

0 0 v V0

1 0
0 Vx
0 1
0 V y

0 0 V z
r r
V0* (V0 vVz ) (V0 v V )
Vx* Vx

V y* V y
Vz* (Vz vV0 )
r
The vector V * in the frame F* can be presented by the formula:
r
r
r
r
V * V x*i V y* j V z* k
r
r
r
V x i V y j (V z vV0 )k
r
r
r
r
(V x i V y j V z k ) (1 1 / )V z vV0 k
r
r
v
V (1 1 / )V z vV0
v
r r
r r ( 1) V v

V v
V0
v
v

60

We have:

1
1 v2

2 1
=> v
2
2

r
r * r r ( 1)(V vr )

V V v

V
0
v 2

r
r r 2 ( 1)(V vr )

V v

0
2
( 1)

r r r r

V v
V v V0
1

61

Emmy Nther's theorem:

A physical observable a is a constant of motion, if

and

a) the corresponding operator A does not have explicit time dependence

A
0
t
b) the operator commutes with the Hamiltonian.
H,A 0

Write the expectation value of the operator 'A' on an arbitrary ket space | . Take the time derivative
of the expectation value and use the time-dependent Schrdinger equation. Deduce the conditions for

the derivative to be zero.

62

Wigner-Eckart Theorem:
An important theorem involving irreducible tensors is Wigner-Eckart theorem:
The matrix element of an irreducible tensor operator Tkq , acting on a ket |
is a product of two factors:

, resulting in a bra

a) Clebsch-Gordon coefficient
|
and
b) A reduced matrix element which is independent of m, m' and q.
Thus,

1
j Tk j ' j ' m' kq jm
2 j 1
The equation satisfies angular momentum coupling rules
j j ' k j j ' ; m' q m
jm | Tkq | j ' m'

The Clebsch-Gordon coefficient contains trivial but essential geometrical information, while the
reduced matrix element has the dynamical information.

63

TIFF
are
QuickTime
needed
(LZW) decompressor
toand
seeathis picture.

64

Consider the magnetic moment operator, allowing for the contributions from the orbital and spin
magnetizations.

m=

-e
g LL g s S
2c

The magnetic moment is given by

jj m jj jj 10 jj
z

j m j

We can relate this element to the expectation vales if Jz operator and m.J operator through31,

jj m z jj

We also have
and

jj m .J jj
jj+ 1h2

jj J z jj

-e
jj g LL J g SS J jj
2
2

cj
j

1
h

L.J

1 2
J L2 S 2
2

S.J

1 2
J L2 S 2
2

j h

we can thus evaluate the magnetic moment.

For particles, the orbital contribution

is zero as they have no orbital motion and S.J term is the sole
contributing factor.

31

We use the relation

jm ' V.J jm
jm ' J q jm
j j 1h2
valid for the qth component of an arbitrary vector operator V.
jm ' Vq jm

65

We should briefly describe the scattering process and derive the Breit-Wigner formula for the
resonance cross sections.
The experiments consist of a beam of particles scattering off a stationary target. The incoming beam of
particles can be written as a plane wave traveling along z-direction, as in eikz . After the scattering,
the outgoing beam of particles consists of waves radially divergent from the scattering center (the
target nucleus). The effect of this interaction is to change the amplitude and cause phase shift of the
outgoing waves. It is, thus, convenient to write both incoming and outgoing waves as spherical waves.
In the equation below, is the distance from the target nucleus and 'l' is the orbital angular
momentum. The incoming plane waves are of well defined linear momentum and thus a wave number
'k' and they do not have a well defined orbital angular momentum. The sum, known as partial wave
expansion, expresses the incoming as sum over all partial waves. For spherical waves, the flux is
proportional to 1/r2 and thus the amplitude or wavefunction is proportional to 1/r.
i
eikz
2l 1eikr l eikr Pl cos

2kr l
After the interaction, the particle beam comprises of scattered and unscattered waves. The scattering
changes the amplitude and phase of outgoing wave, which may be parametrized as change in
amplitude (l ) and phase shift (l), specific to each partial wave. Clearly 0 l 1. Thus the total
wavefunction, after scattering, is
i
total
2l 1l e2il eikr l eikr Pl cos

2kr l
or the scattered wavefunction is
1
scat total
2l 1l e2il 1 Pl cos eikr

2ikr l
We may rewrite the scattered wavefunction as below:
eikr
scat
F
r
l e2il 1
1
F 2l 1
Pl cos
k l
2i
Two observations are worth consideration:
2
The probability that we observe a scattered particle at an angle , is proportional to scat
1
2
2
with scat 2 F . The 1/r2 is the important, albeit trivial, flux variation with distance from
r
scattering center. The physics is contained in the scattering amplitude F(), which varies with the
scattering angle and it carries no radial dependence.
For elastic scattering, the flux scattered into a spherical surface of radius 'r' subtending a solid angle d
is given by
2
2
vi scat r 2 d vi F d vi d
In the above equation, we have made use of definitions of cross section. The left hand side of the
equation expresses the fact that the square of wavefunction represents scattering probability into unit
volume, a sphere of radius r and surface area of 4r2 corresponds to 4 steradians solid angle. In the
right hand side of the equation, we made use of definition of cross section.

66

Thus, the scattering cross section is

integrated over all angles (el) as

d
2
F . We can deduce the scattering cross section
d
d

d d P P d
l

l'

l e2il 1
4 l,l '
4
The integral P Pl 'd
. Thus, the elastic cross section el 2 2l 1
l
2l 1
k l
2i

For elastic scattering with no absorption (l = 1), we get a very simple and interesting result:
4
el 2 2l 1sin 2 l
k l
The experimental scattering cross section data can be analyzed to deduce the contributions of
individual partial waves and thus the phase shifts. For a partial wave 'l', the cross section is maximum
for sin l = 1 or phase shift l = /2 radians or the f(/2) is purely imaginary. The energy at which the
phase shift goes through this maximum 'f' value for a specific 'l' value and thus maximum cross
section, a resonance occurs.
Breit-Wigner formula for resonance cross section:
We consider cross section for a partial wave 'l' and we omit the subscripts to simplify the notation. We
set =1 which corresponds to purely elastic scattering with no absorption. The partial cross section for
the specific 'l' may be written as
4
2 2l 1 f 2
k
2i
e 1 i
sin
1
where f
e sin i
2i
e
cot i
Here, the phase shift is function of the particle energy and we can make a Taylor expansion of cot
around the phase shift at resonance energy (ER).
d

cot E cot ER E ER cot

dE
E ER
dropping the higher order terms. The first term on the RHS is zero, since at resonance the cross section
is maximum and it corresponds to sin =1.
2
/2
d

cot
Thus, f
where

ER E i / 2
dE
E ER
and
4

2
2 2l 1 f 2 2 2l 1
k
k
E ER 2 2 / 4
is Breit-Wigner formula.
The width is defined such that = max/2 for (E - ER) = . In the above, we have ignored the
intrinsic spins of particles and resonance angular momentum.
For an elastic scattering of particles of spins sa and sb, proceeding through a resonance of spin J, the
above equation reads as
67

2J 1
4

2
2 2l 1 f 2
k
k 2sa 12sb 1 E ER 2 2 / 4

Lifetime and width of resonance:

We can relate the width of a resonance () to the mean-lifetime () of a decaying particle by
Heisenberg's uncertainty relation E T h or h . We can interpret the uncertainty relation in
the following way.
The time dependent wave function of a decaying particle may be written as
t 0 eiER t /het /2 .
For a stable particle, the lifetime is infinity and et /2 1 and t 0 2.
2

For particle decay, t 0 et /

2

From Breit-Wigner formula, we have E 0 ei ER i /2t /h for energy E= ER+i/2, or h .

We can thus estimate the lifetime from the width of resonance and vice-versa.
h

We can write

hc 197.329 MeV

c 31023 s

Or a natural width of 1 MeV corresponds to a life-time of 0.6577 x 10-21 s.

Nucleargiant resonances are a few MeV wide, their life-times are of ~ 10 -21 seconds.
Nucleon resonances are broader ( ~100 MeV ), their life-times are of 10-23 seconds.

68

What do we want from a particle detector?

Some combinations of:
Good energy resolution
Fast response
Low dark current
Good mechanical and thermal stability
Compactness
Minimum deadlayer
Low cost
Easy to fabricate etc. etc.
We need to understand/know
a) how particles interact with matter (energy dependent effects)
b) properties of detector materials
c) electronic readout techniques
d) how to combine properties of various detector elements to achieve the goals of experiment
Charged versus neutral particle detection
Low versus high energies.
The particles/radiation we detect:
Nucleons, ions (alphas, heavy ions), pions, muons, kaons (particles of lifetimes a nano second or
longer).
Usually particle data tables gives c which should give an idea whether the particle track can be
measured/detected in the lab.
We know that radioactive particles obey the exponential decay law and the number N(t) of particles of
lifetime surviving after a time t is given by N(t) = N(0) e-t/. If we prepare a beam of these particles
in the laboratory, then the flux of the particles after a time-interval t or at a distance x from the
source is given by
N t N 0 et /

Nx N0ex/ c N0exm /p
where m is the rest mass of the particle and other symbols have their usual meanings.

69

It is worth noting that this realization as very important implications for day-to-day nuclear physics
experiments. As one prepares secondary beams of particles such as pions, kaons, muons, and more
recently beams of radioactive nuclei, these expressions have practical value in the designs of
beamlines, experimental setups and detector ensembles.
As you see above, cis a parameter characteristic of particle species.
c (in units of meters) of some particles of interest:
muon (658.65); +- (7.8); 0 (25nm) ;
K+- (3.71); K0S ( 2.68 ) ; K0L (15.3)
The particles with higher c will travel longer distances before they decay and it is easier to detect
them.
Charged particles do various things in the media:
Leave ionization trails, cause scintillations, emit radiation, etc.
Relativistic particles, especially electrons induce EM showers.
Neutral particles: neutrons undergo nuclear interactions
Photons: photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, pair production, EM showers.
As charged particles have well defined range in media, one can define a stopping power of the medium
as a function of energy, while for the neutrals, we refer to attenuation lengths.

70

71

72

73

74

Photon interactions: Rayleigh Scattering, Thomson scattering, Compton Scattering, Photoelectric

effect and Pair production.
Rayleigh scattering: Photon scattering off the bound atomic electrons. Electron are bound at the final
state (no ionization of atoms). Elastic process occurring at very low energies.
Thomsom scattering: Photon scattering off free atomic electrons. Electrons are set in oscillatory
motion and they emit radiation. A classical oscillator calculation and it is good at low energies.
Compton scattering: Photon elastic scattering of importance for the nuclear radiation detectors.
Klein and Nishina derived the Compton scattering formula in 1929. The Cross section is proportional
to Z, the atomic number of the target atom. Below, Th is the elastic scattering of photons off the
atomic electron calculated from the classical theory. The assumption is that the photon is absorbed by
an electron. The electron subsequently oscillates at the frequency corresponding to h, the energy of
the photon. Thus, for an atom of atomic number Z, the cross section is proportional to Z, the number of
atomic electrons.

ph Z e Th
The cross section of photoelectric effect
The exponent n varies between n~ 4-5 and it depends on photon energy.
The pair production cross section varies as Z2.
Photonuclear reactions (Giant dipole resonances)

75

76

77

78

79

80

Wire Chambers:

81

82

83

Nuclear Decay as a Markovian Process

Random walk problem preoccupied physicists for a few centuries. It appeared as an example of
Brownian motion in fluids for which Einstein offered a solution. Prior to that, kinetic theory of gases
assumes that the molecules in a gas container are in incessant motion, undergoing elastic collisions
with other molecules and walls of the container.
We may ask two different questions about the system and its evolution over time and/or space.
1) What is the probability that a molecule undergoes a collision in a time interval t ?
2) What is the average displacement of a molecule from an initial position and the variance etc ?
Let us consider the first question, which deals with the mean free path of collisions.
Assume that the probability that a molecule collides with another molecule or wall does not depend on
its past history, but it is simply proportional to t, the duration of the time interval of observation.
Thus we have, the
q (t) = t
with q (t) as the probability that a collision occurs and is the proportionality constant.
Then the probability that a molecule avoids a collision during this time interval is
p(t) = 1- q (t) = 1- t
For two successive intervals 2 t ,we have
p 2t 1 t

or, for n such intervals with t = n t

n
p t p n t 1 t

Lt n p t Lt n 1 t

t
or p t e

t
Lt n 1

The exponential law is simply based on the assumptions

a) that the interaction does not depend on the previous history and
b) 'n' is very large.

84

We find this law, in several physical processes:

a) Radioactive decays
b) discharge of a capacitor
c) attenuation of radiation (light etc.) etc.

85

86

87

88