The Standard Model - 4. Lepton Decay

Muons and Tau; the heavier of the leptons, aren't found in ordinary matter as when these Leptons are produced they decay into lighter forms of leptons. When a Lepton decays it transforms into its respective neutrino and other constituents of matter (e.g muon neutrino, quark and anti quark).

Terms used to determine lepton decay are 'electron number', 'muon number' and 'tau number', these are used to show what outcomes could be successful when leptons decay.

These numbers all add up and are conserved.

For example, a successful outcome for a tau decay is: electron + electron anti neutrino + tau neutrino. When a lepton decays the electron number, muon number and tau number all are conserved.

Physicists have observed that some decays can happen while others cannot,

to reach this conclusion they divided the leptons into families:

The Electron and it's neutrino,

The Muon and it's neutrino,

and the Tau and it's neutrino.

The members of these 'families' must remain constant in a decay i.e an particle & antiparticle cancel each other out.

Again this is only another short post as I am doing this 'mini-series' of blogs about the standard model in small segments - Thanks, Chris.