Re: Question About Charged Particles.

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

At 09:56 AM 4/10/01 -0500, Kilmer, Skip wrote:
> if things like electrons existed
> that were lighter than electrons, wouldn't electrons be unstable, since they
> could decay to the lighter particles?

That's a good question, because of the "totalitarian" principle, which
states that any reaction that can occur will occur.

But that principle is often used in reverse:  If a reaction doesn't occur,
people just conclude that it can't occur.  Typically they hypothesize that
the reaction would violate some conservation law.

Muons decay only slowly into electrons, because of the law of conservation
of lepton number.  The difference in lepton number has to flow away in the
form of neutrinos, and the emission thereof is a weak process.

Now the hypothetical bantam particles (lighter than electrons) would
presumably have their own lepton number, distinct from electrons, muons,
and everything else.  Now, if we want bantam particles to exist, all we
need to do is hypothesize that the emission of the corresponding neutrino
could be arbitrarily weak, and that would make electrons last an
arbitrarily long time.