Quote:
Originally Posted by mugaliens
Well, if you were to convert matter to energy without any residual matter, you'd have nothing but photons.
So, I guess photons are pure energy.
Can the energy be so massive that the photons break down into still smaller constituents, as neutrons break down into quarks which are composed of muons, gluons, and other things I've long since forgotten how they exactly fit together?
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mugaliens. Neutrons break down into protons by a quark transmutation...down to an up with emission of a W
-, which is transitory, breaking immediately into an electron and an electron-type antineutrino. The neutron is a baryon (heavy particle) as is the proton, and baryon number is conserved here.No neutron has ever been seen converting to muons or gluons.
Quarks are pointlike, with no known substructure, like the electron, not composed of muons or gluons. Muons are capable of decaying into electrons and a muon type neutrino, so think of them as a heavy lepton (as the Tau is also). Gluons exchange color charge between quarks the way virtual photons exchange the electromagnetic force between electrons and protons in an atom, except colored gluons operate in nuclei. That's how they fit together. Pete
