Types of Particle

Here are some brief details of different types of particle mentioned throughout this web-site.
Baryons Are particles made up of 3 quarks (see below)Examples include the proton (p), neutron (n)
Kaon (K) Kaons are mesons (see below)
Leptons There are three types of charged lepton: the electron, muon and tau, each of which has an
associated neutrino (electron neutrino,muon neutrino, tau neutrino) The properties of each are summarised
below. For each lepton there is a corresponding antiparticle (positron, anti-muon and anti-tau). Each of these also has
a corresponding anti neutrino.
Mesons Mesons are particles made up of a quark and an anti-quark. Examples of mesons are the Kaon , Pion ,
Psi particles.
Muons Muons are leptons. They have a charge of -1 (electron charge). The muon is 200 times bigger than the
electron. Most of the particles detected by the spark chamber are muons, as they are very penetrating, and have a long
lifetime.
Neutrino Italian, for "little neutral one," These are very low mass particles which have no charge. There are many,
many billions of neutrino's passing through your little finger's nail every second, and their main source is thought to be
from the Sun. They are so unreactive, that if they were to travel through a light year worth of lead, there would only
be 50% change that it would hit anything along the way.
Much experimental work is currently being done to understand the mass and related properties of the neutrinos. The
neutrino has a very, very small mass and may constitute the source of some of the so called 'Dark Matter' present in
the universe.
Pions Also known as pi-meson. Pions are elementary particles classified as a meson. The pion can be positively ,
negatively or neutrally charged. These charged pions decay into muons and neutrinos, the neutral pions convert
directly into photons.
Positrons These are identical particles to electrons, having the same characteristics. The only difference being that
they are positively charged. This is an example of antimatter, and releases gamma radiation when it collides with
matter.
Quarks One of the fundamental constituents which make up matter. To give an example:
It is well known that an atom consists of neutrons, protons and electrons. If you could probe to see inside a proton or
a neutron, you would find that each contained three smaller, constituent particles called quarks.
There are six quarks, each with its own flavour which can be simplified to a type of quark. These are: up (u), down
(d), strange (s), charm (c), bottom (b) and top (t).
Particles with half integer 'spin' (angular momentum) are called fermions and consist of three quarks.
Particles with integer spin 'spin' are called bosons and consist of quark-antiquark pairs.
For example, the proton is made of a two u quarks and one d quark, the neutron consists of two d quarks and one u
quark. The positively charged pion consists of one u quark and one anti-d quark.
The proton, neutron, and pion are by no means the only particles which are made of quarks. All strongly interacting
particles, known as baryons or mesons, are made of quarks.
What does a spark chamber detect?
There are two types of cosmic rays which exist, primary and secondary. Primary cosmic rays are the names given
to cosmic rays when they are initially formed (Click here to find out where cosmic rays come from). However,
primary cosmic rays are very rarely detected at ground level because they generally undergo collisions with atoms
very high up in the atmosphere. These collisions produce a cascade of secondary cosmic rays which shower down
through the atmosphere to the earth's surface. It is of this type of cosmic ray which the spark chamber detects.
The diagram below shows the primary cosmic ray colliding with the nucleus at about 60Km above ground level,
where the collision produces a cascade of secondary particles, known as a cosmic-ray shower.
A Cosmic Ray Shower
It can be seen that the secondary cosmic rays include pions (which decay to muons, neutrinos and gamma rays) as
well as positrons and electrons produced by muon decay and gamma ray interactions with atmospheric atoms.
Why can primary cosmic rays decay and produce secondary cosmic rays?
Primary cosmic rays, as discussed above have high energy, E. By the usage of Einstein's well known equation, E =
mc2,it can be seen that the energy of the primary cosmic ray can be converted into new mass, i.e. new particles can
be produced from the energy of the primary cosmic ray. These new particles are the secondary cosmic rays. After
a while, and if enough energy is available to individual secondary particles, these can decay to produce yet more
secondary particles.
It can therefore be appreciated that one primary cosmic ray can cause the production of many secondary cosmic rays
which is what the spark chamber detects. The nearer one gets to ground level, the secondary particles become less and
less energetic. So the energy of most secondary cosmic rays detected at ground level is a lot less then the energy of the
original primary cosmic ray.
Although the spark chamber will detect all secondary cosmic rays, it is mainly muons which it detects. This is
because muons are very penetrating as they only interact electromagnetically. They also have a long life-time (only
2.2ms, but they travel at the speed of light, so they travel very far) and there are thus lots of them around at ground
level which the spark chamber detects.
Cosmic Rays
A spark chamber can be used to detect cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are high energy charged particles which typically
have energies ranging between 106 - 1020 eV (around 10-13 - 10-10 Joules). Although in these terms this does not
sound a very large amount of energy, the energy is very concentrated; the particles are extremely small (typically 10 -
29
kg and of the order 10-18m in radius, or 0.000000000000000001 metres in radius) it can be appreciated that this is
a large energy for each of these minute particles to have.
Cosmic rays originate in outer space, (mainly from supernova explosions but also from stars see "where do cosmic
rays come from" to read more) travel at the speed of light and strike the Earth from all directions.
The cosmic rays strike the Earth's surface at the rate of about 1 cosmic ray every square centimetre every
minute. Perhaps a more meaningful way to look at this is that during an average nights sleep a person will have on
average of a million cosmic rays traveling through their body!
Cosmic rays are very penetrating; so much so that they have also been detected under the ground, such as in the
London Underground system and down deep mines. The table below gives some comparison of penetration for
different types of radiation, so that cosmic rays can be compared.

Radiation Mass Electric Charge Average Penetration Depth in Air

X-rays 0 0 100m
Alpha rays 3.7GeV +2e 0.1m
Gamma rays 0 0 1km
Primary cosmic rays Mixed Mixed approx. 10km
Secondary cosmic rays Mixed Mixed approx. 10km
How are cosmic rays useful in science?
(A) The large energies of cosmic rays allow them to be used to smash up atoms from which more can be learnt
about the atom and the structure of matter.
(B) The source of cosmic rays are of interest to astronomers and cosmologists (see the University of Birmingham
Astrophysics web page: http://www.sr.bham.ac.uk )
(C) Radiocarbon dating resulted from cosmic ray research (see http://www.cq.rm.cnr.it/c-14.html )
Where do cosmic rays come from?
All the light and the heat which we receive on the Earth comes from the sun, so it seems reasonable to suspect that
cosmic rays may also come from the sun. This however, is not the case. There are two pieces of experimental
evidence which back up this statement.

Firstly, it is well known that during the day it is light and at night it is dark, in other words a variation of light
intensity seen on Earth occurs during a day (24 hour cycle). Similarly the hottest part of the day occurs between
11am and 3pm, the coolest part occurring in the early hours of the morning. In other words there is a heat variation
during the day. Based on these facts, it is reasonable to assume that if cosmic rays came from the sun, they too
would have some daily variation in intensity. For example, the intensity of cosmic rays received by the Earth would
be large around lunchtime, and much less in the middle of the night. However no such variation is observed. Indeed
the cosmic rays received by the Earth is (nearly) constant at all times during the day.

The second reason why cosmic rays cannot come from the sun, is that the sun is not able to give out particles with the
high levels of energy which cosmic rays are known to have.

Evidence also exists to suggest that cosmic rays cannot exist outsi
galaxy. In order to understand why this is so it is first necessary to
what exactly our galaxy looks like.

The milky way galaxy can be modeled as a 'fried egg'

The galaxy has a large number of stars at its centre and fewer further out. In fact, photos of our galaxy actually
support this idea; at the center, a "mush" or "mix" of stars, where the large amount of light coming from them prevents
us from seeing them separately. In all, our galaxy contains about 100,000 million stars. The Earth is found towards the
edge of the galaxy. The galaxy is a spiral shape and is rotating at 290km/s which is equivalent to 640,000mph. This
means that all the stars and planets within the galaxy are also rotating. Therefore the Earth is rotating and moving
through space, relative to neighboring galaxies, with a speed of 640,000mph. The maximum speed a car can legally
travel in Britain is 70mph, 9143 times slower than the speed with which the Earth is moving through space.
When Usain Bolt broke the 100m world record, he ran at a speed of around 0.01km/s. Concorde travelled a little faster
when it was still in service, and was capable of speeds around 0.63km/s.
The fact that the Earth is moving through space implies that the intensity of the cosmic rays coming from outside of
space would be greater on the side of the Earth facing the direction from which the cosmic rays came.
 To make this clearer, consider the figure on the left. If cosmic rays co
outside of the galaxy, say traveling (as shown) from right to left, then
number of cosmic rays received on face A must be greater than the n
received on face B, (as the purple cosmic ray intensity shadow shows

Cosmic rays from outside of our galaxy?

Furthermore, if cosmic rays come from outside of the galaxy "cosmic ray intensity" would change at different
times during the day, due to the fact that the Earth is spinning on it's own axis. No such variation is observed.
Indeed the cosmic ray intensity on all points on the Earth's surface are roughly the same, at all times during the
day. Therefore it is thought cosmic rays have no spatial or time variation.
We conclude from these observations that the majority of cosmic rays must originate within our galaxy. The next
question which inevitable follows is: where from within our galaxy do cosmic rays come from?
Some cosmic rays are formed from stars, but most come from Supernova explosions. As keen astronomers will
know, a star "lives" for around 1 billion years. At the end of their lives, some stars explode. These are called
Supernova explosions. About 100 supernova explosions occur during one year (within our "horizon" of space), and
they are observed mostly by professional astronomers, although during February, 2001, the 5th ever supernova
explosion seen by an amateur was recorded. Since this website was first made, 5 more significant t hey release
atomic nuclei. These atomic nuclei are the source cosmic rays and are mostly hydrogen and helium nuclei. These
source cosmic rays are known as Primary cosmic rays.
supernovae have been recorded. In our galaxy, a supernova only happens every 50 years, (on average.) When
supernova explosions occur
Are cosmic rays harmful?
Primary cosmic rays could, potentially cause damage to cells in the body, and can cause cancer. Some scientists
also have a theory, that cosmic rays may have altered Man's evolution, by altering DNA. However, it is highly
unlikely that the primary rays will reach ground level (although it is not unknown); they will have already collided
in the upper atmosphere. Secondary rays, which are common around ground level, are not harmful. If they were, or
if the upper atmosphere didn't stop the primary rays, life on Earth may not have been possible.