KIT Faculty of Physics

Institute for Experimental Particle Physics

Prof. Dr. Markus Klute
Dr. Nils Faltermann
Jay Lawhorn
Ralf Schmieder

Particle Physics 2 — W/Z/Higgs at Colliders

Summer Term 2024

Exercises No. 1 Discussion on TBD

Exercise 1: Pion at rest

Consider a charged pion at rest which decays into a muon and a neutrino. Calculate
the speed of the muon as a function of the involved masses. The mass of the neutrino
can be neglected.

Exercise 2: Antiproton production

Antiprotons (p̄) are typically created by firing a proton (p) beam on a fixed target
(a proton at rest) via e.g. the reaction

p p → p p p p̄ .

Calculate the minimal energy of the moving protons in the beam such that the above
reaction is possible.

Exercise 3: Neutral Kaons

Consider the neutral Kaons K 0 and K̄ 0 .

a) What are the parity eigenvalues of the two Kaons regarding the application of
the parity operator P ?

b) What happens if the charge conjugation operator C is applied to K 0 and K̄ 0 ?

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 c) Construct the eigenstates of the combined operation of the parity operator
and the charge conjugation operator also called CP .

d) Into how many Pions can the CP eigenstates decay assuming CP conservation
in the weak interaction?

Exercise 4: Angular momentum in the β-decay

In the original β-decay n → p e− with n, p, e− representing the neutron, proton,

and electron, respectively, the angular momentum is not conserved. Why is this the
case? If you would add a new particle to the decay, as Fermi did, what spin would
you assign to this particle and why?