Sample Solutions

S1 Strong: conserves individual quark numbers

Charged weak: conserves total quark numbers but not

individual quark numbers

Examples
- 0
Strong: p+ + p Æ p+ + p , p + p Æ K + L

Charged weak: n Æ p + e - + n e , K 0 Æ p + + p - etc

Feynman diagrams

S2 Amplitude is
g2
f ~ 2 2
q c + M 2c 4
so factors are:
g – coupling constant; M the mass of the exchanged particle
2
and q the (squared) momentum transfer carried by the
exchanged particle.

gW ª gEM , so

f EM q 2c 2 + MW 2 c 4
R≡ ª because Mg = 0
fW q 2c

2 2
For q = 10GeV , R ª 641
and
2 5 2
for q = 10 GeV , R ª 1.06

S3 Spectator model: exchanged boson interacts with a

single quark – all other quarks are non-interacting
‘spectators’

Bs = sb and Ds = sc , so:

S4 Hadron spectroscopy: close agreement with spectra of

hadrons (spins, quantum numbers etc) and no ‘surplus’
states predicted.
 Quark jets: observations of hadron production in
e +e - annihilation consistent with e +e - Æ qq followed by
quark fragmentation – angular distribution of jets etc.

Deep inelastic scattering: data exhibit approximate

2
scaling i.e. weak dependence on q at fixed x – evidence
for point-like objects in the nucleon – detailed analysis
shows that these have the properties of quarks

S5 Three components:

Absorber to slow particles; detector (scintillator) to

give rise to light output; assembly of light guide and
photomultiplier to convert output to an electronic signal.

EM calorimeter: only detects p 0 and photons

Hadronic calorimeter: can detect these also (although not

very well) and also hadrons

Differences: hadron calorimeters are longer devices

because the absorption length is much bigger than the
radiation length; poorer energy resolution because the
shower is more complex and some energy lost because
some particles (muons and neutrinos) will escape detection

S6 need to determine mass as this is a unique signature of

the particle

momentum is one function of mass – need a second

possibilities: velocity and energy

velocity can be measured by Cerenkov effect

radiation occurs when v > c n – appears as cone at an
angle q to direction of motion, where cosq = 1 bn –
measurement of q is direct measurement of velocity

energy can be measured in calorimeter

S7 Electron detected in both a MWPC and an EM

calorimeter – latter is better at high energies

Neutrino does not interact unless you have huge

quantities of matter – presence inferred by using
momentum conservation

Muon not detected in EM calorimeter, but if a MWPC

is placed behind a hadronic calorimeter, you can be sure
that the particle is a muon

S8 Diagram in notes (show field lines and discuss briefly

how initial ion pair production can lead to a shower if the
energy is high enough)

S9 Liquid drop model assumes nuclei have similar mass

densities and binding energies proportional to masses.
Analogy is with a classical liquid where nucleons play role
of individual molecules within the droplet. Motion of
molecules is totally correlated with motion of all nearby
molecules. Implies SEMF has terms analogous to surface
tension etc. Some terms have no such analogy because they
are quantum mechanical – pairing term and the asymmetry
term – which depend on the Pauli principle.

S10 Nucleons move independently in a potential due to the

effect of all the other nucleons.

Differences: not a Coulomb potential so not the high degree

of degeneracy as in atomic case; spin-orbit term is large
and of opposite sign

Evidence: magic numbers – places where nuclei are

particularly stable (more stable isotopes, no electric dipole
moments etc)

S11 Non-zero neutrino masses can lead to neutrino

oscillations and hence non-conservation of lepton umbers

Can measure masses in neutrino oscillation experiments

and beta-decay

Nuclear beta-decay: draw electron energy spectrum and

explain shape – mention form of curve at high energy end
point and how Kurie plots can be used to extract mass –
explain choice of nucleus as tritium.

S12 electron and positron emission; electron capture; alpha

emission; fission; and photon emission. Write down
reactions in a general form.
238 235
S13 Natural Uranium is > 99% U and only <1% U .
The latter has a substantial fission cross-section for very
low energies (E < 0.1 eV). Fission neutrons have about 2
MeV. Will lose energy by collisions but there is a high
probability of being absorbed in a resonance before the
energy falls to very low values. Fission in 238U requires E >
1.4 MeV, but neutrons will rapidly lose energy by
scattering to fall below threshold. Hence no chain reaction
in practice.

Solutions: enhance percentage of 235U (to 2-3%) or use

moderator (substance that has very high crosss-section for
scattering but very low of absorption – graphite or heavy
water)
- + -
S14 K = su , K = us , p = uud , so K p = sduuu (equivalent to
sdu) and therefore

-
Y is equivalent to (sdu) - (us ) = ssd
-
Thus the quantum numbers of Y are

B˜ =1, C = B = 0, S = -2

Because the decay does not conserve individual quark

numbers, it is a weak interaction and the lifetime will be
-8 -10
~ 10 - 10 sec .
S15 Near A ª 60 , B A ª 8.8 MeV . Hence to remove an
alpha particle requires about 35 MeV of energy which
cannot be compensated by the binding energy of the alpha-
particle (28.3 Mev) – hence nuclei are stable to alpha decay
in this region.

a - decay possible only by barrier penetration – however

must tunnel thru Coulomb barrier to escape nucleus.

Probability µ exp(-2G)

Where G is Gamow factor.

G µ ke of a - particle

this is very small until ke > 6 Mev which only happens for
very heavy nuclei. Also: frequency of attempts at barrier
will increase with kinetic energy.
S16

nm + p Æ m + + n : Lm not conserved

ne + p Æ m - + n + p + : Q not conserved

L Æ e - + n e + p + : B˜ not conserved

K + Æ m + + nm + p 0 : OK as a charged current

K 0 Æ e + + e - : strangeness - changing neutral current, thus forbidden

m - Æ e - + n e + n m : both Le and Lm violated

S17 Modern accelerators are colliders because in these

machines all the energy can be use to create new particles,
whereas in a fixed-target design much of the energy is used
in giving recoil energy to the target.

The total centre-of-mass energy is given by

E CM 2 = (E A + E B ) 2 - (pAc + pBc)2

where E A and E B are the energies of the two beams. On

neglecting the particle masses, this reduces to

E CM 2 = 2E A E B (1- cos f )
where f is the angle between pA and pB . Here f = p - q ,
where q is the crossing angle (since zero crossing angle
corresponds to head-on collisions, pA = -pB ). Thus, finally

2
E CM = 2E A E B (1 + cosq )
0
We have E A = 30GeV , E B = 820GeV and q = 10 , so that
1/2
E CM = [2 x30 x820x(1 + 0.985)] = 312.5GeV

In the lab system,

1/ 2
[ 2 4 2 4
E CM = mb c + mt c + 2mtc E L 2
]
where mb is the mass of the beam particle (electrons in our
case), mt is the mass of the target particle (protons in our
case) and E is the energy of the beam in the lab system.
L

Neglecting particle masses as before gives

1/ 2
[
E CM = 2mp c E L
2
]
and hence
2 2
E (312.5)
E L = CM 2 = = 5.21x104 GeV
2m p c 2x0.938
 S18 A particle with velocity v will take time t = L v to pass
between the two counters. Relativistically,
-1/ 2
p = mvg with g = (1- v 2 c 2 )

Solving, gives
-1/2
È m2 c 2 ˘
v = c Í1+ 2 ˙
Î p ˚

and hence the difference in times-of-flight (assuming m1 > m2 )

is
1/2 1/2
L È Ê m1 2c 2 ˆ Ê m2 2c 2 ˆ ˘
Dt = Í Á1 + - Á1+ ˙
c ÍË p 2 ˜¯ Ë p2 ˜¯ ˙
Î ˚
Using
m1c 2 = m p c 2 = 0.983 GeV
2 2
m2 c = mp c = 0.140 GeV
pc = 2GeV
gives
L
Dt = [1.114 - 1.002]
c
and
8 -12
(3x10 )x(200 x10 )
Lmin = = 0.54m
0.112

†
S19 In an obvious notation, the kinematics in the lab frame
are:

g (E g , pg ) + e - (mc 2 ,0) Æ g ( E g¢ , p¢g ) + e -(E,p)

Energy conservation gives

E g + mc 2 = Eg¢ + E

and momentum conservation gives

pg = p¢g + p
From the latter we have

E 2 - m 2c 4 = c 2 (pg 2 + p¢g 2 - 2pg .p¢g )

But pg c = E g , pg¢ c = Eg¢ and the scattering angle is q , so

we have

E 2 - m 2c 4 = Eg 2 + E g 2 - 2Eg Eg¢ cosq

Eliminating E between this equation and the equation for

energy conservation gives

Eg
E g¢ =
1 + Eg (1- cos q ) mc 2
 0
Finally, using E g = E g¢ 2 and q = 60 , gives
E g = 2mc 2 = 1.02MeV .

S20 Electrons lose energy by ionization and radiation. The

former is governed by the Bethe-Bloch formula. Describe
the essential features of the Bethe-Bloch equation and the
formula that governs radiation. The latter dominates at high
energies

S21 A B hadron is one containing a b quark. It will

therefore have a very short lifetime. So we need a method
of precisely determining the interaction point and the point
where the hadron decays. This implies using a vertex
detector because of its size and excellent spatial resolution.
The decay products will be charged and can de detected in
a track chamber of some sort, such as a drift chamber or a
MWPC.

S22 Deep inelastic scattering data from nucleons exhibit

approximate scaling, ie the structure functions (form
2
factors) are approximately in dependent of Q at fixed
values of x. This behaviour is what is expected for
scattering from point-like particles, ie the Fourier transform
of a point-like charge distribution is a constant form factor.
These point-like constituents of the nucleon can be
identified with quarks b ecause detailed analysis of the
form factors shows that the data imply that the spins of the
constituents is 1/2 and their charges are the third integral
values of quarks.
Scaling is not exact and precise data show that the structure
2
functions do exhibit a small Q dependence at fixed x. This
is due to quark interactions by the exchange of gluons.
These are governed by the strong interaction coupling
2
constant, which in QCD is a weak function of Q . QCD is
able to explain the observed deviations from exact scaling.

S23 Observation of approximate scaling implies the

existence of point-like objects in the nucleon. Detailed
analysis of data shows that these have spin 1/2 and charges
consistence with those of quarks. Scaling violations are the
2
observations of small Q dependences of the structure
functions at fixed x. These are due to quark-quark
interactions. The latter are governed by the strong
2
interaction coupling which is Q dependent.

S24 One is hadron spectroscopy. The quark model is able

to successfully account for all the observed hadron states as
combinations of quarks, but only by ignoring the constraint
of the Pauli principle. This can be corrected, while not
changing the predictions by assuming that quarks exist in
three states of a new attribute called colour and arranging
that the colour part of the total wavefunction has a definite
symmetry to agree with the Pauli principle.

The second is jet production in electron-positron

annihilation. In the quark model this is assumed to be due
to the annihilation of the initial state to a photon followed
by the formation of a qq pair that fragment to handron
jets. This model, for example, explains the angular
distributions of the jets. However, the integrated cross-
section is found to be a factor of three too small compared
to data and this is explained by the hypothesis of colour.
Since each quark in the qq can have a definite colour and
the production of each pair has equal probability, the
theoretical prediction must be multiplied by a factor of
three.

S25 In addition to the decay

b Æ c + e - + ne

there are two other leptonic decays

b Æ c + m - + nm and b Æ c + t - + nt

and by lepton universality they will all have equal decay

rates. There are also hadronic decays of the form

b Æc + X
where Q(X ) = -1 . Examining the allowed Wqq vertices
from lepton-quark symmetry shows that the only forms that
X can have, if we ignore Cabibbo-suppressed modes are
du and sc , leading to the Feynman diagrams:
 d(s)

W-
b
u(c)
c

Each of these hadronic decays has a probability three times

that of a leptonic decay (lepton-quark symmetry) because
the quarks exist in three colour states. Thus, there are
effectively 6 hadronic channels and 3 leptonic ones. So
finally,

Rate(b Æ c + e - + n e ) 1
= ª 0.1
Total decay rate 9

S26 The Higgs boson is postulated to be a fundamental

electrically neutral spin-0 particle. It is introduced to ensure
that divergences in the Standard Model cancel exactly. The
Standard Model also has a symmetry called gauge
invariance. This predicts that all the 'force carriers', i.e. the
W, Z and the photon, should have zero masses. The Higgs
boson modifies the theory to produce non-zero masses in
accord with observation.

0
The branching ratio for Z Æ bb is found from the partial
widths to be 15%. Thus, if b quarks are detected, the much
greater branching ratio for H Æ bb will help distinguish
0
this decay from the background of Z Æ bb .
S27

S28 Magic numbers etc.

In the simple harmonic oscillator model, the notation is

nl , where n is the radial node quantum number and l is
the orbital angular momentum quantum number. The
occupancy is 2(2l + 1) , so we have:

1s l=0 fi 2
1p l=1 fi 6
2s l=0 fi 2
1d l=2 fi 10
2p l=1 fi 6
1f l=3 fi 14

and the magic numbers would be 2, 8, 20, 40, … The first

three are correct, but the fourth one is not. To produce a
realistic potential we need to add a spin-orbit interaction.
The first three are correct, but the fourth one is not. To
produce a realistic potential we need to add a spin-orbit
interaction.
S29 have done very similar problems several times

S30 The PPI chain overall is:

4 1
( H )Æ4 He + 2e + + 2n e + 2g + 24.68MeV
Two corrections have to be made to this. Firstly, the
positrons will annihilate with electrons in the plasma
releasing a further 2me = 1.02MeV per positron. Secondly,
each neutrino carries off 0.26 MeV of energy into space that
will not be detected. So, making these corrections, the total
output per hydrogen atom is

1
4 (24.68 + 2.04 - 0.52) = 6.55MeV
The total energy produced to date is

(4.6 x109 x 365x24 x60 x60)x(3.86x10 26 )= 5.60 x1043 Joules

5.60x10 43
= -13
= 3.50x10 56 MeV
1.60x10

Thus, the total number of hydrogen atoms consumed is

3.50x10 56
= 5.33x1055
6.56

and so the fraction of the Sun’s hydrogen used is

 5.33x10 55
= 5.9%
9 x1056

and as this corresponds to 4.6 billion years, the Sun has

another 80 billion years to burn before its supply of
hydrogen is exhausted.