If all matter we perceive around us is made out of elemental atoms (Up&Down Quarks + Electrons) What do the other 4 quarks (Charm, Strange, Top Bottom) & 5 Leptons (Muon, Tai, Electron Neutrino, Mou Neu’, Tau Neu’) Get up to in the universe around us

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I suppose a shorter way to ask this question would be; What do the other Composite particles aside from protons and neutrons get up to in the universe…

*Spelling Mistake in title (Tai is supposed to be Tau)

In: Physics

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They do occationally make appearances in nuclear decay, nuclear fusion, high energy particle interractions, etc. We do actually detect quite a number of muons here on the ground from interactions between high energy cosmic particles and our atmosphere and this can be used for various things. We do also see neutrinos which can be generated by supernovas or nuclear detonations. So we can detect these events before the photons and other particles reach us.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Mostly decaying into the ones we are more familiar with. All of those particles (except the neutrinos) are unstable and can’t exist for very long before they decay into the ones we are more familiar with. Even limiting it to just particles made up of up and down quarks, all free baryons decay into protons eventually, and in an atom only protons and neutrons are stable.

We detect these particles only when high energy interactions produce them close to us, so we can detect muons coming from collisions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere.

With neutrinos there are actually a tonne of these around, they are produced in nuclear decays and reactions such as those in the sun. But neutrinos can only interact via the weak force, which means that the majority of them pass right through the Earth without even noticing and continue travelling.

All the others we can only make very briefly with particle colliders, they decay almost immediately.