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Neutrons into electrons

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10-04-2018 , 07:33 PM

Bill Haywood

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 5,133

According to Wiki, electrons are fundamental particles that are not made up of smaller parts such as quarks.

Neutrons are made of one up and two down quarks, but they can decay into an electron, proton, and antineutrino. I gather the inverse does not hold -- you do not say a neutron is made up of said three particles. Or can they be slammed together and make neutrons?

So when a neutron decays, something must be transmuted into an electron.

Since a proton is one down and two up quarks, is neutron decay basically a down quark flipping up, and giving off an electron and antineutrino in the process?

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10-05-2018 , 02:59 AM

masque de Z

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 9,961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_interaction

It is under charged current interaction through the W boson.

(one quark to the other through W- then it decays to e-+ antineutrino)

hence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay

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