Test 2 Solutions.

January 12, 2013 Useful formulas and constants: e = 1.60x10-19 C; me = 9.11x10-31 kg; c = 3.00x108 m/s; 1 GeV = 1x109 eV Problem 1. Collider Particle Production At the LEP, electron and positron beams are accelerated to energy of 104 GeV. The electron and the positron collide and annihilate each other creating a new particle. (a) What is the mass of the new particle? (b) Express the mass in energy units and in SI units of mass. (c) List the reasons we are using electronvolts to measure energy in particle physics. (d) List the reasons we are using electronvolts to measure mass in particle physics. Solution LEP is Large ElectronPositron Collider at CERN. According to the notation of the Special Relativity tutorial of January 12th session, we show the particles and their quantities before the collision and annihilation as follows: electron------------------><------------------positron p1=104GeV/c; p2= -104GeV/c E1=104GeV; E2=104GeV Before the collision, the relativistic energy-momentum equation gives the invariant mass as: m 2 c 4 = ( E1 + E 2 ) 2 ( p1 + p 2 ) 2 c 2 = ( E1 + E 2 ) 2 = (208GeV ) 2 Here m is the rest mass of an electron or a positron; and c is the speed of light in free space.
(a) After the collision, this energy become the rest energy of just one particle with, m= 208GeV/c2. (b) To convert the mass into SI units of kilograms, we return to expression of the rest energy of the new particle as: E = mc2 m = E / c2 = (208x109 eV) x (1.60x10-19 J/eV) / (3.00x108 m/c2)2 = 3.70x10-25 kg (c) The main reason of using electronvolts in particle physics is the convenience of tuning the accelerating voltage to obtain particular energy. E.g. for setting the accelerating energy for a particle with elementary charge e = 1.6x10-19 C (protons, electrons, positrons) to 104 eV, the experimenter has to set the accelerating voltage to 104 V without any conversion factor to be used. The second reason is in connection with the first one. As the particles to be accelerated have electric charge as an integer number times e, same approach is convenient for any charged particle with applied voltage corrected by the integer multiplier. E.g. to accelerate alpha particles with their charge of +2e to energy of 104 eV, the experimenter has to apply voltage of 104/2 V= 52 V. The third reason is a possibility of expressing the value of energy without using the power of 10, or without using so called scientific notation. (d) Comparing solutions of pp (a) and (b) of this problem, one can see that mass in SI units is proportional to energy with a constant factor of c2. To eliminate conversion into kg every time the experimenter is looking for mass, the system of units with c2 = 1 and energy expressed in eV has been established.

Problem 2. Particle Reconstruction/ Identification The Higgs boson was recently observed at the LHC. In one of its occurrence, it decayed into two b quarks each with mass 5.00 GeV/c2. The two b quarks travelled in opposite directions with momentum of 62.8GeV/c. (a) What is the mass of this Higgs boson? (b) Express the mass in energy units and in SI units of mass. Solution In this solution, we again use the notation of the tutorial Special relativity. This time, the values for rest mass and momentum are known for the after collision state:
(b quark)<------------------ (Higgs boson) ------------------>(b quark) mb = ? m2 = 5.00 GeV/c2 m1 = 5.00 GeV/c2 p1 = 62.8 GeV/c p2 = - 62.8 GeV/c E2 = E GeV E1= E GeV (a) According to the relativistic energy-momentum equation, energy of each of the two b quarks after the collision is E2 = p2c2+m2c4 = (62.8GeV)2 + (5GeV)2 = 3969GeV2 For Higgs boson,
2 mb c 2 = (E1 + E2)2 (p1 + p2)2c2 = (E1+E2)2 = (2E)2 = (126 GeV)2

E = 63.0 GeV

mb =

(126GeV ) 2 = 126 GeV / c2 c4 (126GeV ) 2 126 10 9 1.60 10 19 kg = 2.24x10-25 kg = 4 16 9.00 10 c

(b) mb =