Neutral Pion Decays
Almost all neutral pions are observed1 to decay into pairs of photons
$\pi^{\circ} \to 2\gamma$
We suppose this process is triggered by the absorption of an athereal weak quantum $\hat{\sf{w}}$ followed by the emission of second weak particle with an imaginary mass. The outgoing weak quantum presumably carries off some debris without being detected (yet). This can be written as
$\pi^{\circ} + \hat{\sf{w}} \to \gamma_{\pi 1} + \gamma_{\pi 2} + \sf{w} ( \pi^{\circ} )$
The indicated photons (see table below) are just examples. They are not unique decay products and quarks may be distributed in a variety of ways that yield similar but slightly different photons. For a spreadsheet giving more detail about quark coefficients and other particle characteristics click here.
Charged Pion Decays
Virtually all charged pions exhibit2 decays involving muons and neutrinos in patterns like
$\pi^{+} \to \mu^{+} + \nu_{\mu}$
We model this processes by assuming the absorption of a pionic photon $\gamma _{\pi}$ followed by the emission of a weak quantum with an imaginary mass that presumably carries away some decay products without being detected
$\sf{\pi}^{+} + \sf{\gamma}_{\pi} \to \sf{\mu}^{+} + \nu_{\mu} + \sf{w} ( \pi^{+} )$
This process conserves quarks, and therefore also other particle characteristics like lepton number and momentum.
Quark Coefficients |
photon | u | d | e | g | m | a | t | b | s | c | u | d | e | g | m | a | t | b | s | c |
$\gamma _{\sf{\pi}}$ | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||||||
$\gamma _{\sf{e}}$ | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||||||||||||||
$\gamma _{\pi 1}$ | 4 | 25 | 2 | 25 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 25 | 2 | 25 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||
$\gamma _{\pi 2}$ | 4 | 27 | 3 | 26 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 27 | 3 | 26 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |