I keep seeing things about how protons turn into neutrons but that makes no sense to me. How can the quarks of a proton seemingly change and turn into a neutron? I have a project and I need to know this for both neutron stars and nuclear fusion
In: 3
Beta decay, specifically beta+ decay
Beta- decay has a neutron shooting out an electron and becoming a proton. This is a common form of decay and changes what element it is because the proton count changes
Beta+ decay happens in proton-proton fusion. In the unlikely event that they don’t just fall apart, one of the protons fires off a positron
Brain hurt beyond this point
Protons are made of 2 up quarks (+2/3 charge each) and 1 down quark (-1/3 charge). One of the up quarks spontaneously flips into being a down quark which changes it’s charge by -1 (+2/3 to -1/3) and it gets rid of that charge by firing off a positron and now that it’s 1 up (+2/3) and 2 down (-1/3 each) it’s a neutrally charged neutron
Why does this happen? It just kinda does unfortunately
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