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Weak and strong interaction

.raiden.

So the question asks which particles are affected by weak interaction, originally i thought hadrons such as neutron only experience strong interaction, the answers i have circled are those which are in the mark scheme, but why? Thank you :smile:

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Reply 1

brainybonsai

Original post by raiden95

It is true that only hadrons experience the strong nuclear force, but this does not mean that they are limited to it, they can experience the weak interaction also.

The weak interation governs the decay of quarks, so when a neutron (udd) decays into a proton (uud) in beta decay, a 'd' quark of the neutron is decaying into an 'u' quark, which must mean it is experiencing the weak force, as quarks are decaying.

The positron and neutrino are both leptons, which only interact via the weak interaction.

The positive pion decays through the weak interaction into an antimuon and a muon neutrino.