GLASHOW RESONANCE
- April 4, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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GLASHOW RESONANCE
Subject : Science & tech
Context : The neutrino observatory in Antarctica sees evidence of Glashow resonance.
Concept :
- In 1959, the physicist Sheldon Lee Glashow predicted that the collision between electron-antineutrino (the antiparticle version of the electron-neutrino) and an electron at rest via the weak (nuclear) force can, at a particular incident antineutrino energy, give rise to the formation of the (then) hypothetical particle called W-boson through a resonance process.
- The W-boson, being extremely short-lived, would quickly decay into other particles characteristic of the process, which should be observable.
- Resonance means, for instance, in mechanical systems and musical instruments. It results in the enhancement of an effect at an instant when a certain variable of the mechanical system or the musical instrument, say its frequency, gets tuned to a particular value.
- In particle physics, it refers to a sudden enhancement in the probability of occurrence of some particle interaction at a particular total energy of the interacting particles.
- In the scattering between electron-antineutrino and electron that Glashow considered, the production of W-boson shows up as a peak in the cross section (a measure of probability) of that process at a particular energy.