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October 07, 2009 02:54 PM
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The weak force does not break down in the process you mention. It mediates this process.
At the lowest level (i.e. at the no-loop Feynman diagram level) the process can be described as one of the valence quarks of the proton emitting a W- ("W minus") boson. The W- is the negatively charged of the three carriers of the weak interaction. The originating quark changes in the process to a different quark. The change in valence quark changes the identity of the initial particle (the proton) into a different one (a neutron).
The W- then decays into a positron and an electron neutrino (the neutrino was missing from your description). Since the mass of the W- is much higher than the energy available in the proton, it is far off the mass-shell, meaning that it has a de-facto mass much lower than a W- should have, making it unstable, and forcing the decay to happen in an extremely short time (order of 1/20^23 of a second).
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What causes the weak force to break down converting a proton into a neutron and positron?
What is the theory of weak force degradation?
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| October 08, 2009 02:05 AM |
At the lowest level (i.e. at the no-loop Feynman diagram level) the process can be described as one of the valence quarks of the proton emitting a W- ("W minus") boson. The W- is the negatively charged of the three carriers of the weak interaction. The originating quark changes in the process to a different quark. The change in valence quark changes the identity of the initial particle (the proton) into a different one (a neutron).
The W- then decays into a positron and an electron neutrino (the neutrino was missing from your description). Since the mass of the W- is much higher than the energy available in the proton, it is far off the mass-shell, meaning that it has a de-facto mass much lower than a W- should have, making it unstable, and forcing the decay to happen in an extremely short time (order of 1/20^23 of a second).
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1. What was the originating quark pattern of the proton?
2. What quark did the originating quark change into?
3. What are valence quarks?
Note first that although the quark charges are fractional (i.e. less than e) the stable and meta-stable particles they make up always end up with integral charges (e.g. 1e, 0, -1e). Note also that the above speaks about the valence quarks. Protons and neutrons (as well as any composite particle made up of quarks and/or anti-quarks) have also a "sea" of virtual quark/anti-quark pairs, and of gluons that appear and disappear on minute time-scales.