Dec 19, 2015
1900 Charles T. R. Wilson’s ionization chamber Electroscopes eventually discharge even when all known causes are removed, i.e., even when electroscopes are
•sealed airtight•flushed with dry,
dust-free filtered air•far removed from any
radioactive samples •shielded with 2 inches of lead!
seemed to indicate an unknown radiation with greater
penetrability than x-rays or radioactive rays
Speculating they might be extraterrestrial, Wilson ran underground tests at night in the Scottish railway, but
observed no change in the discharging rate.
1909 Jesuit priest, Father Thomas Wulf , improved the ionization chamber with a design planned specifically for high altitude balloon flights.
A taut wire pair replaced the gold leaf.
This basic design became the pocket dosimeter carried to record one’s total exposure to ionizing radiation.
0
1909 Taking his ionization chamber first to the top of the Eiffel Tower (275 m) Wulf observed a 64% drop in the discharge rate.
Familiar with the penetrability of radioactive rays, Wulf expected any ionizing effects due to natural radiation from the ground, would have been heavily absorbed by the “shielding” layers of air.
•light produces spots of submicroscopic silver grains•a fast charged particle can leave a trail of Ag grains
•1/1000 mm (1/25000 in) diameter grains
•small singly charged particles - thin discontinuous wiggles•only single grains thick
•heavy, multiply-charged particles - thick, straight tracks
1930s plates coated with thick photographic emulsions (gelatins carrying silver bromide crystals) carried up mountains or in balloons clearly trace cosmic ray tracks through their depth when developed
November 1935 Eastman Kodak plates
carried aboard Explorer II’s record altitude
(72,395 ft) manned flight into
the stratosphere
50m
Cosmic ray strikes a nucleuswithin a layer of
photographicemulsion
1937 Marietta Blau andHerta Wambacher
report “stars” of tracks resulting from cosmic
ray collisions with nuclei within the emulsion
Elastic collision
p
p
p
p p
p
1894 After weeks in the Ben Nevis Observatory, British Isles, Charles T. R. Wilsonbegins study of cloud formation
•a test chamber forces trapped moist air to expand•supersaturated with water vapor•condenses into a fine mist upon the dust particles in the air
each cycle carried dust that settled to the bottom
purer air required larger, more sudden expansion observed small wispy trails of droplets forming without dust to condense on!
Tracks from an alpha source
1952 Donald A. Glaser invents the bubble chamber
•boiling begins at nucleation centers (impurities) in a volume of liquid
•along ion trails left by the passage of charged particles•in a superheated liquid tiny bubbles form for ~10 msec before obscured by a rapid, agitated “rolling” boil
•hydrogen, deuterium, propane(C3H6) or Freon(CF3Br) is stored as a liquid at its boiling point by external pressure (5-20 atm)•super-heated by sudden expansion created by piston or diaphragm•bright flash illumination and stereo cameras record 3 images through the depth of the chamber (~6m resolution possible)
•a strong (2-3.5 tesla) magnetic field can identify the sign of a particle’s charge and its momentum (by the radius of its path)
1960 Glaser awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics
3.7m diameter Big European Bubble Chamber
CERN (Geneva, Switzerland)
Side View
Top View
1936 Millikan’s group shows at earth’s surface cosmic ray showers are dominated by electrons, gammas, and X-particles capable of penetrating deep underground (to lake bottom and deep tunnel experiments) and yielding isolated single cloud chamber tracks
Primary proton
1937 Street and Stevenson1938 Anderson and Neddermeyer determine X-particles
•are charged•have 206× the electron’s mass•decay to electrons with a mean lifetime of 2sec
0.000002 sec
Schrödinger’s Equation
Based on the constant (conserved) value of the Hamiltonian expression
EVpm
2
2
1 total energy sum of KE + PE
with the replacement of variables by “operators”
t
iVm
22
2
i
p
tiE
As enormously powerful and successful as this equation is,what are its flaws? Its limitations?
We could attempt a RELATIVISTIC FORM of Schrödinger:
What is the relativistic expression for energy?
42222 cmcpE relativistic energy-momentum relation
2
222
2
2
2
1
cm
tc
As you’ll appreciate LATER
this simple form (devoid of spin factors)describes spin-less (scalar) bosons
For m=0 this yields the homogeneous differential equation:
01
2
2
2
2
tc
Which you solved in E&M to find that wave equations forthese fields were possible (electromagnetic radiation).
(1935) Hideki Yukawa saw the inhomogeneous equation as possibly descriptive of a scalar particle mediating SHORT-RANGE forces
like the “strong” nuclear force between nucleons (ineffective much beyond the typical 10-15 meter
extent of a nucleus
2
222
2
2
2
1
cm
tc
For a static potential drop 02
2
t
and assuming a spherically symmetric potential, can cast this equation in the form:
)()(1
)(2
222
2
2 rUcm
r
Ur
rrrU
with a solution (you will verify for homework):
Rrer
grU /
4)(
where R=
hmc
Rrer
grU /
4)(
where R=
hmcLet’s compare:
to the potential of electromagnetic fields: r
grU
4)(
with e-r/R=1its like Ror m = 0!
For a range something like 10-15 mYukawa hypothesized the existence
of a new (spinless) boson with mc2 ~ 100+ MeV.
In 1947 the spin 0 pion was identified with a mass ~140 MeV/c2
1947 Lattes, Muirhead, Occhialini and Powell observe pion decay
Cecil Powell (1947)Bristol University
C.F.Powell, P.H. Fowler, D.H.PerkinsNature 159, 694 (1947) Nature 163, 82 (1949)
Quantum Field TheoryNot only is energy & momentum QUANTIZED (energy levels/orbitals)
but like photons are quanta of electromagnetic energy,all particle states are the physical manifestation of quantummechanical wave functions (fields).
Not only does each atomic electron exist trapped within quantized energy levels or spin states,
but its mass, its physical existence, is a quantum state of a matter field.
e
the quanta of the em potential virtual photonsas opposed to observable photons
These are not physical photons in orbitals about the electron. They are continuouslyand spontaneously being emitted/reabsorbed.
The Boson PropagatorWhat is the momentum spectrum of Yukawa’s massive (spin 0) relativistic boson?
Remember it was proposed in analogy to the E&M wave functions of a photon.What distribution of momentum (available to transfer) does a
quantum wave packet of this potential field carry?
dVerUqf rqi
)(
2
1)(
3
q r = qrcos
dV = r2 d sin d drIntegrating the angular part:
drdedrUrqf iqr
sin)(
2
1)(
0
2
0
2 cos3
2iqr
eee
iqr
iqriqriqr
0
cos1
drrqr
qrrU 2
0
sin)(4
2
12/3
22
2/321)(
mq
gqf
The more massive the mediating boson,the smaller this distribution…
drrqr
qre
r
g mcr 2/
0
sin
4
22/1
Consistently ~600 microns (0.6 mm)
pdg.lbl.gov/pdgmail
BraKet notation We generalize the definitions of vectors and inner products ("dot" products) to extend the formalism to functions (like QM wavefunctions) and differential operators.
v = vx x + vy y + vz z n vn n
then the inner product is denoted by
v u =
^ ^ ^ ^
n vn un
sometimes represented by row and column matrices:
[vx vy vz ] ux
uy = [ ]
uz
vxux + vyuy + vzuz
Remember: n m = nm ^ ^
We most often think of "vectors" in ordinary 3-dim space, but can immediately and easily generalize to COMPLEX numbers:
v u = n
[vx vy vz ] ux
uy = [ ]
uz
n vn*
un
vx*ux + vy
*uy + vz*uz
and by the requirement
< v | u > = < v | u >*we guarantee that the “dot product” is real
transpose column into row and take complex conjugate
* * *
Every “vector” is a ket : |v1> |
v2>including the unit “basis” vectors.
We write: | v > = n |
>
and the scalar product by the symbol
< | >
and the orthonormal condition on basis vectors can be stated as
< | > =
Now if we write
| v1 > = C1n|n> and | v2 > = C2
n|n> then
“we know”:
< v2 | v1 > = nC2n* C1
n =
< v2 | | v1 > = “bra”
Cn n
v u
m n mn
n,mC2m
* C1n<m|n>
mC2m
* <m|nC1
n|n>because of orthonormality
So if we write | v > = Cn|n> = n |n>
= n
= {n } =
So what should this give? < n | v1 > = ??
Remember: < m | n > gives a single element 1 x 1 matrix but: | m > < n | gives a ???
C1n
<n|v>
|n><n|v>
| v > |n><n| |v>1 |v>
n|n><n|
In the case of ordinary 3-dim vectors, this is a sum over the products:
100
[ 1 0 0 ] 010
[ 0 1 0 ] 001
[ 0 0 1 ]+ +
1 0 00 0 00 0 0
+=0 0 00 1 00 0 0
+0 0 00 0 00 0 1
1 0 00 1 00 0 1
=
e
Two important BASIC CONCEPTS
•The “coupling” of a fermion (fundamental constituent of matter)
to a vector boson (the carrier or intermediary of interactions)
•Recognized symmetries are intimately related to CONSERVED quantities in nature which fix the QUANTUM numbers describing quantum states and help us characterize the basic, fundamental interactions between particles
Should the selected orientation of the x-axis matter?
As far as the form of the equations of motion? (all derivable from a Lagrangian)
As far as the predictions those equations make?Any calculable quantities/outcpome/results?
Should the selected position of the coordinate origin matter?
If it “doesn’t matter” then we have a symmetry: the x-axis can be rotated through any direction of 3-dimensional space
orslid around to any arbitrary location
and the basic form of the equations…and, more importantly, all thepredictions of those equations are unaffected.
If a coordinate axis’ orientation or origin’s exact location “doesn’t matter” then it shouldn’t appear explicitly in the Lagrangian!
EXAMPLE: TRANSLATION
Moving every position (vector) in space by a fixed a(equivalent to “dropping the origin back” –a)
original descriptionof position
r
–a
r' new descriptionof position
ar'r
iii qq
r'r
dq
rd
'
a
a
aˆ
i
iii
i dq
qrdq(qr
dq
rd )() a
dq
adq
i
i ˆˆ
or
For a system of particles:
N
iirmT
1
2
21
acted on only by CENTAL FORCES: )()( rVrV function of separation
0
kk q
L
q
L
dt
d
no forces externalto the system
generalized momentum(for a system of particles,
this is just the ordinary momentum)
kk ppdt
d kk q
V
q
L
=for a system of particles
T may depend on q or r
but never explicitly on qi or ri
k
i
ii
k q
r
r
Vp
For a system of particles acted on only by CENTAL FORCES:
k
i
ii
k q
r
r
Vp
-Fi a
aFpi
ik ˆ
aFtotal ˆ
net force on a systemexperiencing only
internal forcesguaranteed
by the 3rd Lawto be
0 kp
Momentummust be conservedalong any direction
the Lagrangian is invariant totranslations in.