What is the possibilities for neutrons and protons to give off particular type of mesons?

Question

What scientific experiment way for the ultimate acceptance of yukawa's theory?

Thanks to all!

Answer 1

Hi chelzy y

Yukawa's theory postulated that since the nuclear force was short range it must be mediated by massive particles (massive bosons). He made estimates of the likely masses of such mediating particles - in particular one called the "pion" - and suggested they might be found in cosmic rays. 12 years later (after the second world war) the pion was discovered by Powell.

In the 50s the Yukawa theory for the strong force suffered two ultimately fatal blows. Firstly the theory proved to not be renormalisable in the fashion of (the successful) quantum electrodynamics theory. Secondly experimental results were proving that a successful strong force theory could not be restricted to just nucleons (protons and neutrons) and pions as mediators.

Today the most successful theory of the strong force is quantum chromodynamics, based on Gell-Mann's quarks and using gluons as mediators. We understand that baryons such as the proton and neutron are composed of three quarks, and mesons such as the pion (and others) are composed of a bound quark-antiquark pair. As such it's not correct to say that a proton or a neutron gives off mesons, and mesons do not mediate the strong nuclear interaction.

Pions (and other mesons) can be produced in high energy collisions between protons and nuclei, but they are not normal decay modes.


Hope this helps!
The Chicken