Muon from Electrons! Pun intended.
You must be familiar with the concept of doppelgängers. People who look and act like you, but are not you. Now imagine that in the context of electrons. Yes, you got that right. Electrons as we know them are negatively charged subatomic particles that orbit the nucleus of an atom and are much, much smaller than the nucleus. What are the odds of something eerily similar to an electron existing? Well, the world of science will never cease to amaze us. Allow me to introduce you to Muons. A muon that is symbolized using the Greek letter mu (μ) is an elementary particle much like an electron, except with more mass. With an electric charge of -1 e, it is classified as a lepton. Intrigued enough? Read on to know more.
A muon is about 200 times the mass of an electron. To be precise, muons are said to be about 100 MeV and electrons about 0.5 MeV (MeV: Mega electron-volt)
You must be wondering, what is an Electron volt? An electron volt is the amount of kinetic energy a single electron acquires, initially from rest, through an electric potential difference of 1 volt in the vacuum. In the case of muons, their mass is in units of MeV, which means it is about 100 million electron volts. Wow, right?
Here are some terms you should acquaint yourself with before knowing more about muons:
Quark: A quark is a type of elementary particle and a basic composite of matter.
Mesons: Mesons are subatomic particles made up of quark and antiquark.
Hadrons: A hadron is a subatomic composite, composed of two or more quarks held together by a powerful force.
Pions: Just like the mesons, they are composed of quarks and antiquarks. Due to this fact, pions are mesons.
Muons are formed as a result of the collision of cosmic rays with atomic nuclei of molecules of air, in the upper atmosphere of our planet.
Muons can also be formed artificially, with the help of a particle accelerator. High energy protons, produced from a particle accelerator, are made to collide into a carbon or beryllium target. Pions are formed as a result of high energy interactions between incoming protons and target protons and neutrons. Pions, positive or negative, both are very unstable and decay, forming positive or negative muons as well as neutrinos (Neutrinos: Similar to an electron, a neutrino has no electric charge and an extremely small mass, which may or may not be 0). The muons, then, are selectively channelled into a beamline and are brought to a spectrometer (a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components formed as a result of a physical phenomenon), consisting of the sample. Surface muons beams can be generated from pions that decay at the target’s surface. Cool, isn’t it! Even high momentum beams can be formed, of positive or negative muons, where the pions decay at flight.
According to a recent study, muons seem to be misbehaving. Muons seem to not obey the known laws of physics. What could this mean? This means that our understanding of physics is not yet complete, and there is a bizarre force that affects them. It is said that this force dates back to an extremely long time and has shaped our universe initially. Additionally, this force might also be responsible for dark matter.
Watch out for this space, science folks! We are going to come up with such interesting things fairly frequently. If you have suggestions for us, please feel free to post them in the comments below. Liked this article? Go ahead and share it with others!
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