What are electrons and muons?
What are electrons and muons?
Muons are everywhere Muons have the same negative charge as electrons but 200 times the mass. They are made when high-energy particles called cosmic rays slam into atoms in Earth’s atmosphere. Travelling at close to the speed of light, muons shower Earth from all angles.
Can electrons become muons?
Negative muons can form muonic atoms (previously called mu-mesic atoms), by replacing an electron in ordinary atoms.
Are there atoms with muons?
Muonic atoms are atoms where a negative muon has been captured by the nucleus. Due to its 207 times higher mass compared to the electrons, the muon orbits the nucleus at a 207 times closer distance and experiences 207 times higher binding energies (neglecting in both cases the finite size of the nucleus).
What are pions and muons?
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.
Can atoms have muons instead of electrons?
For example, electrons may be replaced by other negatively charged particles such as muons (muonic atoms) or pions (pionic atoms). Because these substitute particles are usually unstable, exotic atoms typically have very short lifetimes and no exotic atom observed so far can persist under normal conditions.
Why do pions decay to muons?
The heavier muon has a larger left-handed component, and its decay is less suppressed. Hence, pions usually decay into muons, although they have less phase space available.
Why does the muon exist?
The muons that hit the Earth result from particles in the Earth’s atmosphere colliding with cosmic rays—high-energy protons and atomic nuclei that move through space at just below the speed of light. Muons exist for only 2.2 microseconds before they decay into an electron and two kinds of neutrinos.
