Were In Trouble

Physics 145: Particle Physics Theres too much going on here

Time to retrench, and go about it all carefully
Lecture 8
The story of particles in about 1960 was
Being Systematic: Cross Sections simply one of overwhelming confusion

Take our time and do it right

Decays
Cross Sections & Scattering
Bound states

From Last Time Lifetimes and Interactions

Feynman diagrams

x vs t picture of particles moving and interacting

Think of the world Hamiltonian as
The Standard Model
Think of it a little like perturbation theory
H corresponds to free particles
0 The free Hamiltonian preserves particle
H , H
EM, HWk correspond to perturbations which connect previously
S
unconnected initial and final states types (no decays)
Three interactions
Strong (hadron initial state, hadron final state)

Electron (hadron / lepton / photon initial, hadron / lepton / photon Each of the interactions HS, HEM, HW has
final)
Weak (neutrinos in either initial or final) different properties
M >>M
S EM>>MWk (in general, unless M = 0 by selection rules) Different selection rules
Particle content: quarks, charged leptons, neutrinos, photon, gluon, W/Z
Decays Different pairs of states may be connected
Fermis Golden Rule
In general

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Strange Particles Plan for Next Few Days
Cross Sections

Bound States

Relativistic Kinematics

Cross Sections Simplest Cross Section: Locusts

Locusts Imagine they are just thin locust cutouts
The moon Cross section is just the geometrical area
Thomson
Impact parameter b
Hard Spheres

For single simple shape, with rotational

symmetry about axis (circular locust disks)
Ask: for what values of b do I hit the target?
P=probability to hit target, if impact parameter

is b

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 Twist: Energy-dependent Cross-
Section
What is the collision cross section for a small
particle with the moon?

Low-velocity (stationary) limit: as soon as you

release the particle, it accelerates toward
moon, independent of the initial impact
parameter b

At infinite velocity, you only hit the moon if

impact parameter is less than Rmoon

Thomson Scattering Thomson Cross Section

E-M plane wave moving along z-direction Radiated power
incident on an electron Total radiated power

Force on electron
Incident flux
Acceleration of electron Total power

Radiated power
Cross Section

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 Picture of the Cross Section Hard Spheres: Angles

Total power in this scattered scat

E-field is equal to total power 90-inc
through this cross sectional inc
area 90-inc
. Nota bene: electron size is R
exactly 0! b inc
90-
Size of electron oscillation
in c
.
may be larger or smaller
than the cross-section!
If you like, you may

think of this as the

effective electron size
to light
Thom=6.7x10-29 m2 See Griffiths ch. 6 (examples 6.1-6.3) for a more
formal and systematic approach--beware different
notation wrt

Hard Spheres: Angles Hard Spheres: Angles

nb some azimuthal direction
dscat suppressed in drawings dscat
difficulties in scat scat
3-d drawing
here; azimuthal
direction R R
suppressed b 90- 90-
in c in c

dA db

90-
in c

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 Hard Spheres: Solid Angle Cross Section
azimuthal direction
suppressed in drawings dscat
scat

R
90- For Thomson
in c Number scattered per second= power scattered / energy per
photon
Number incident per area per second= incident power flux / energy
per photon
So you see this is the same definition as

Power scattered / incident flux

Often both numerator and denominator are per unit time

Cross Sections and Matrix

Scattering and Interactions
The cross-section concept can be extended to inelastic
collisions
When the particle types involved change during the interaction
Then the number scattered is reinterpreted as the number
of interactions
Elements
As with FGR for decays, we can relate the cross-
section for a process to the matrix element
connecting the initial state and final state
1+2 3+4++n

For fixed incident particle flux

The cross section for each type of interaction can be written
as above (e.g. the number of interactions producing photons,
the number of interactions producing electrons, etc)
The total interaction cross section is the sum of the
individual interaction cross sections
Allowed strong interactions are the most numerous (MS
large)
Allowed EM interactions are next most numerous (MEM)
Allowed weak interactions are least numerous (MWk)

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2 to 2 scattering
As in case of decay, there is a fairly simple
form for this one case
Evaluated in the CM frame
Two initial momenta are the same

Two final momenta are the same

Example e+e-+-