Class #4 (Jan. 17) Reading Questions - The Particle Odyssey


Chapter 7


1.  Explain what a resonance is and describe the experiment that first observed the "delta" resonance.


2. Explain the importance of the omega minus particle in the history of particle physics.  The first experimental evidence for this particle is shown in Fig. 7.12 where a negative kaon collides with a proton.  Examine this figure and verify that strangness is conserved in the initial step where the omega minus is produced.


3. What was project Poltergeist?


4. Describe the experiment carried out at SLAC that provided the first direct experimental evidence for the existence of quarks.


5. After the SLAC experiments found direct evidence for quarks, experimentalists began searching for an isolated quark.  But alas, no one has ever found a single isolated quark, despite great effort to "free" one from a proton.  Explain why an isolated quark cannot exist.




Extra Credit:  I will give you some extra credit (worth a few reading questions) if you turn in a labeled sketch of Fig. 5.14 that shows all particles described in the figure legend (using dashed lines to indicate the paths of any "invisible" neutral particles).