Nuclear and Particle Physics

Question 1

What is antimatter?

Answer 1

A particle with the same mass/rest energy as its matter particle but with opposite charge and opposite quantum numbers.

Question 2

What happens when a particle and its antiparticle meet?

Answer 2

They annihilate to create a photon.

Question 3

Define baryon.

Answer 3

A particle consisting of three quarks; protons and neutrons are both baryons.

Question 4

What is the most stable baryon?

Answer 4

The proton.

Question 5

What is baryon number?

Answer 5

+1 for a baryon, -1 for an antibaryon, and 0 for any other particle.

Question 6

Describe a cyclotron.

Answer 6

A particle accelerator with two semicircular electrodes that accelerates charged particles in a spiral path.

Question 7

What are fundamental particles?

Answer 7

Particles that cannot be broken down into smaller constituents.

Question 8

What is a gauge boson?

Answer 8

Fundamental particles that are the carriers of the fundamental forces.

Question 9

What is the gluon?

Answer 9

The gauge boson of the strong interaction.

Question 10

Define hadron.

Answer 10

Particles that undergo strong interactions, made up of quarks, including mesons and baryons.

Question 11

What is a lepton?

Answer 11

Fundamental particles that do not interact via the strong force.

Question 12

List examples of leptons.

Answer 12

• Electron
• Electron neutrino
• Muon
• Muon neutrino
• Tau
• Tau neutrino

Question 13

What is lepton number?

Answer 13

+1 for a lepton, -1 for an antilepton, and 0 for any other particle.

Question 14

What does a linac do?

Answer 14

Accelerates charged particles through sets of oscillating electric fields along a straight path.

Question 15

Define meson.

Answer 15

A particle consisting of one quark and one antiquark.

Question 16

Give examples of mesons.

Answer 16

• Pions
• Kaons

Question 17

What is the nucleon number?

Answer 17

The number of neutrons and protons in the nucleus.

Question 18

What is a photon?

Answer 18

The gauge boson of the electromagnetic force.

Question 19

Describe the plum pudding model.

Answer 19

A model of the atom that describes it as a ball of positive charge with evenly distributed negative electrons.

Question 20

What is proton number?

Answer 20

The number of protons in the nucleus.

Question 21

Define quark.

Answer 21

A fundamental particle that interacts with other quarks via the strong interaction.

Question 22

What are the six flavors of quarks?

Answer 22

• Up
• Down
• Charm
• Strange
• Top
• Bottom

Question 23

What is quark confinement?

Answer 23

The principle that states quarks cannot exist alone and must be in pairs or threes.

Question 24

What is relativistic motion?

Answer 24

Particles traveling at close to the speed of light experiencing time at a slower rate.

Question 25

What is strangeness?

Answer 25

A measure of how many anti-strange quarks a particle has.

Question 26

True or False: A K+ meson has strangeness +1.

Answer 26

True.

Question 27

What is thermionic emission?

Answer 27

When heated metal releases free electrons from its surface.

Question 28

What is the weak interaction?

Answer 28

The force that causes flavor change in quarks and leptons, responsible for beta decay.

Question 29

What are W + /W/Z 0?

Answer 29

Gauge bosons of the weak interaction.

Question 30

What is an isotope?

Answer 30

elements with the same number of protons but different number of neutrons.

Question 31

What is a positron?

Answer 31

The antiparticle of an electron. It has the same mass but opposite charge and lepton number of -1

Question 32

Give an example of particle production

Answer 32

photon --> electron + positron

Question 33

What is wave-particle duality?

Answer 33

waves have particle-like properties and particles have wave-like properties.