What Happens When Things Go Near the Speed
of Light?
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Fermilab Experiment E687
In this experiment, a high-energy photon is created by a proton from the accelerator. The photon strikes
a stationary slab of beryllium. This
collision occasionally results in the creation of a charmed meson
(D0). Charmed mesons do not live very long before they
decay into two other particles, a pion (p-) and a kaon
(K+). How far do D0 charmed mesons travel before they decay? Their half-life is 4.0x10-13
s which means they cannot travel very far unless they are traveling
very fast!
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