Chronicles Of Antimatter: There’s A Ghost Particle Among Us! (Part 6)
The Coolest Article on Neutrinos & The Neutrino Hypothesis (Part 1)⚛
Hello, reader! If you are new to my articles and you’re wondering what is happening, then I personally recommend reading my previous articles on beta decay and inverse beta decay.
Carlos, do I have to read them?
No, but if you want to understand the concepts of what I am talking about, then I would personally recommend so.
Plus, if you learn and understand these concepts well enough, you can probably delay your AP Physics Final Exam by about 5–10 minutes by talking to your teacher about neutrinos and confusing them! Trust me, it works! 😉
Carlos, I have already been here, but I thought you were going to talk about Ryan Weed, not The Neutrino Hypothesis- thingy!
Well, dear reader, let’s just say I'm trying to meet the man in person (aka Zooming, unfortunately 😑). You can figure out what could happen soon…
Beta (+) And (-) Decay & Energy
As I have said so many times in this series, beta decay is a certain type of radioactive decay that occurs when an atom is decaying; unstable. When an atom undergoes Beta Decay, it can undergo Beta decay in one of two ways. In Beta (+) Decay, a neutron converts into a proton, whereas in Beta (-) Decay, proton converts into a neutron, but both forms of Beta Decay have to release/lose some energy, or subatomic particles, because of the decay to make the atom more stable.
Carlos, you’ve told us this before, but now I want to hear more about how it works! Let’s hear the technical stuff!
If an atom undergoes Beta (+) Decay, the atom will emit a positron. If an atom undergoes Beta (-) Decay, the atom will emit an electron. However, this is not right.
Let me explain this with a demonstration of a radioactive isotope of Potassium-40 (K-40).
K-40 Decay (Explained!)
K-40 Decay is an unstable isotope of Potassium because there are too many protons/neutrons, depending on which of two isotopes it wants to decay into.
Normally, unstable atoms decay into 1 new atom. However, K-40 can decay into two different elements, Argon-40 or Calcium-40! K-40 can turn into the stable Calcium-40 isotope 89.28% of the time (also known as Beta (-) Decay), while K-40 can turn into the stable Argon-40 isotope 10.72% of the time (also known as Beta (+) Decay).
But now that we have talked about the types of Beta Decay, it’s time we talk about the origins of this process: The Neutrino Hypothesis and the Discovery of the Neutrino.
Yay! Finally! :))
The Neutrino Hypothesis
Scientists in the 1930s who were experimenting with Beta (+) & Beta (-) Decay discovered that energy was missing when the unstable atoms went through this specific type of decay. This is where the Neutrino Hypothesis was made and led to the eventual discovery of the Neutrino.
There Is A Ghost Particle Among Us!
The first sign of a new fundamental elementary particle was that there was a violation of certain physical laws that were meant to be conserved, some of these laws are spin, angular momentum, etc.
During the beta decay, a nuclear reaction is taking place, because atoms and/or subatomic particles are fusing or decay, which in this case, will give the electron or positron kinetic energy when it is released from the unstable atom (Kinetic Energy is just energy of an object because of its motion).
Wait, Carlos so does that mean the electron has a certain amount of kinetic energy being released from the nucleus?
With that explanation, you may believe that the electron has an exact amount of kinetic energy that is released from the atom, and distributed evenly among the nucleus, which what the theoretical idea was.
However, when the scientists ran the experiment to find out the kinetic energy of the electron when it was emitted from an atom due to Beta Decay, they found out it was more “spookier” than that! The kinetic energy of an electron had a large distribution of the energy released from the atom from undergoing Beta Decay!
What. The. F*-
I will have to censor you, reader. Children are reading this as well, you know!
But anyway, time to explain the distribution of energy in Beta Decay!
Where Is The Rest Of My Kinetic Energy?
Uh, Carlos, I don't understand graphs like that! Can you help us, readers, out in understanding what this graph means?
Sure! Here are two terms to understand the length and height significance of the graphs.
- X-axis means the kinetic energy released
- Y-axis means the Relative Intensity/Probability of the Electron(s)
Thank you, Carlos! Now, proceed with your article!
Now, let’s go back to Potassium-40 to demonstrate the graph on Kinetic Energy. The kinetic energy of an electron/positron can be distributed if you repeat the decay process over a certain amount of time. Beta (+) Decay has more kinetic energy and energy intensity than Beta (-) Decay, which partially explains why Beta + Decay is not very frequent in Potassium-40; and in fact, Beta + Decay happens in K-40 only 10.72% of the time!
Depending on the nuclear reaction, the kinetic energies fall in a continuous range, all depending on if the atom undergoes Beta (+) and Beta (-) Decay. But here is where things get weird.
Okay… Well show us, then!
Let’s pretend we perform a nuclear reaction of Beta (+) Decay. You can ignore the neutrino, for now, just pretend he’s a ghost. 😉
If we notice at the graph of the kinetic energy of Beta (+) Decay, there must be a distribution of the kinetic energy, because, in experiments on Beta (+) Decay, some of the kinetic energy was not carried by the positron, so that could have meant only one of two things:
- (Beta +) Decay violates the Law of Conservation Of Energy & Momentum!
- There must be a new subatomic particle that is emitted while Beta (+) Decay carries the remaining kinetic energy that is “missing”.
I’ll let you decide which one is right…💭
Carlos, I think this is enough information for today! Plus, it’s the holidays, so chill out!
Yes, I believe you! Tell you what, I’ll stop here for today, but when I publish my new article soon, try to understand these concepts, so you can follow along easily when Part 2 of Neutrino Physics is released!
Thank you, Carlos! Happy holidays! 🙏🏽
Happy Holidays to you too, Reader! 🎄🕎
TL;DR
During Beta (+) and (-) Decay, kinetic energy is released with an electron (Beta (-) Decay), or a positron (Beta (+) Decay).
In the 1920s –1930s, we thought that the laws of conservation of energy and momentum were violated because we were not able to explain the phenomena of energy loss.
This is when scientists and experimentalists predicted that there was an additional (and new) subatomic particle that must also be emitted during Beta (+) and Beta (-) Decay.
That new subatomic particle is now known as the neutrino/antineutrino.
