Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Dharmansh on 10/11/2011 18:30:47
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Are protons unstable?
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It has been suggested that Protons have a half life of between 10^33 and 10^35 years but no experimental evidence has as yet confirmed this.
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As syhprum said, it is predicted in some models that they should be unstable. Based on what I understand, if any given particle's properties (electric charge, mass, and other conservation numbers) can be summed up by the properties of a series of lighter particles, then it is favorable for that particle to decay into the lighter particles. Theoretically, a proton could decay into a positron and two pions (which would then decay into gamma rays) and fulfill this. However, no such occurance has yet been confirmed.
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It has been suggested that Protons have a half life of between 10^33 and 10^35 years but no experimental evidence has as yet confirmed this.
Well, that's easy then. All we need to do is keep an eye on about 10^35 of them for a year or so, and one them ought to pop.
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The problem is of course keeping out Neutrinos etc that confuse the results
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It is by no means generally accepted that protons decay at all - the standard model has conservancy of baryon number, and as the lightest baryon then the proton has nowhere to go (ie there is no lighter baryon) and is thus theoretically stable.