Do pions decay into muons?

Charged pions most often decay into muons and muon neutrinos, while neutral pions generally decay into gamma rays.

What do pions decay to?

gamma rays
Neutral pions decay into gamma rays (π0 → 2γ) with a mean life of 8.4·10−17 s at rest. The latter can produce electron-positron pairs which subsequently undergo bremsstrahlung, which again can produce electron-positron pairs, and so on, as long as the photon energy exceeds 1.02 MeV.

What causes muon decay?

Muon decay Muons are unstable elementary particles and are heavier than electrons and neutrinos but lighter than all other matter particles. They decay via the weak interaction.

Do pions decay into electrons?

The primary decay mode of a Pion, with probability 0.999877, is a purely Leptonic decay into an anti-Muon and a Muon Neutrino. The second most common decay mode of a Pion, with probability 0.000123, is also a Leptonic decay into an Electron and the corresponding Electron anti-Neutrino.

How does a pion work?

Whereas the muon is uninfluenced by the strong force that works inside the nucleus, the pion plays a role in binding protons with neutrons. This means that high-energy muons can penetrate far into matter before they interact or decay; indeed, some cosmic-ray muons travel hundreds of metres below ground.

What particles can a positive pion decay into?

Almost always, a positive pion decays into a muon and a muon neutrino, but in about one-in-12,000 instances, the positive pion decays into a positron and an electron neutrino.

What happens to charged pions when they decay?

Charged pions most often decay into muons and muon neutrinos, while neutral pions generally decay into gamma rays . The exchange of virtual pions, along with vector, rho and omega mesons, provides an explanation for the residual strong force between nucleons.

What happens to muons when they decay?

Muons may only decay to electrons -the only particles lighter than muons which carry the same electric charge- and they do so by means of the exchange of a W boson, the carrier of the electroweak charged-current interaction.

What was the first person to discover muon decay?

Marietta Kurz was the first person to detect the unusual “double meson” tracks, characteristic for a pion decaying into a muon, but they were too close to the edge of the photographic emulsion and deemed incomplete. A few days later, Irene Roberts observed the tracks left by pion decay that appeared in the discovery paper.

What is the difference between a muon and a pion?

At first, physicists believed that it was the particle we now know as the pion. The pion is only about 30 per cent heavier than the muon, but it behaves very differently. Whereas the muon is uninfluenced by the strong force that works inside the nucleus, the pion plays a role in binding protons with neutrons.