Talk:Weak interaction

message: The process
:e^-\to e^- + Z^0
cannot happen without another potential! It's the same as with
:e^-\to e^- + \gamma
which violates energy and momentum conservation. That's obvious if going to the electron's rest system!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.2.17.78 (talk) 03:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutral current Interaction wrong 

message: The section on violation of symmetry states, in a kind of unclear (contextual) way, that the weak force violate CP symmetry. This is not the case. The 'bare' weak force preserves CP symmetry, whereas the weak force in the SM because of the SU(2)xSU(3) structure violates it. 
83.89.32.26 (talk) 16:10, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Violation of symmetry is ambiguous or wrong 

message: I'm wondering what use the authors of this page expect the page to be.  The level of physics knowledge needed to comprehend this page is beyond that of anyone who would need to look up the subject of the page.  I'd tackle trying to write a basic explanation, but I'm not a physicist, and would be afraid of making some basic errors.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.88.233.70 (talk) 17:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Totally agree.  It seems the article's only use is to tell PhD's in physics what they already know. Captain Quirk (talk) 04:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree.  The article is meaningless to anyone that does not already understand it. Tuntable (talk) 00:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

text: There is a use for more detailed information. I have a Ph.D in semiconductor physics.  I can usually understand descriptions of nuclear physics, but I don't already know them. That isn't to say that there shouldn't be useful material for non-physicists, or non-scientists in general. Even full-time nuclear physicists don't know everything, and need a reference book sometimes. If it takes a few years of schooling to understand, you can't expect to learn it all from one article. Gah4 (talk) 00:10, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Dude! Not to be rude or anything, but if you have a PhD in Physics what in the world are you THINKING using Wikipedia as a "Reference Book" (in Physics)?!216.96.77.80 (talk) 17:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some help here, please? 

message: Does the weak nuclear force generate an attractive or repulsive force between two particles? The other 3 forces generate attractions and/or repulions, so shouldn't the weak nuclear force do the same thing, especially if it is supposed to be similar to the EM force?
: The answer, oddly enough, is no.  The weak force the same as the others in a fundamental sense, in that force-carrying bosons are exchanged.  The difference is that the weak force, unlike all the other forces, is mediated by very heavy particles.  Thus whereas two electrons can exchange many, many photons and so produce what's effectively a continuous repulsive force, they exchange relatively few Z bosons because they're so heavy.  (Really, the Z bosons do make a very small contribution to electron repulsion.)  I'm not sure if that helps or not, but there's a try.  If you have more questions, the best place to ask is Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. -- SCZenz 03:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attraction and/or Repulsion? 

message: Proton decay states that free neutrons decay in approximately 10 minutes due to weak interaction. Can someone add some details about this? Confuted 17:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Neutron decay is beta decay at its most fundamental. I haven't looked at it, but the beta decay page should explain this. Gah4 (talk) 23:01, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

text: The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 12:50, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Role in neutron decay? 

message: Which pairs of weakly interacting particles attract each other and which repel each other via weak interaction? Is there any charge associated with weak interaction (such as electric charge in electromagnetism, or mass in gravity) that could be used to determine whether there will be attraction or repulsion between the particles caused by weak interaction? --193.198.16.211 (talk) 19:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the weak corollary to electromagnetic charge, color charge, and gravitational mass is weak isospin, though my understanding of the weak interaction is woefully inadequate. As for repulsion and attraction, I'm not sure if that plays a significant role in the weak interaction, which I think of more as a flavor-changing force.  Eebster the Great (talk) 06:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: From the responses elsewhere it looks as if two electrons or two neutrinos would experience a slight repulsion, whereas an electron and a neutrino (which have opposite weak isospin) would experience a slight attraction. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 10:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attraction and/or Repulsion, pt. II 

message: Seems impossible (or merely abstract) for anything to be more than one time less than another, yet the article states "the typical field strength is 1011 times less than the strength of the electromagnetic force and some 1013 times less than that of the strong force..." (A few statements on this page also use similar language.)
Though the electromagnetic force may be 1011 stronger than the typical field strength, that equation does not work in reverse. To simplify, field x is twice as strong as field y (x=2y), but you would not say that y is twice weaker (y=x-2x), you would say y is half weaker (y=.5x).
Apparently, the numbers that are hinted at in the article are extremely small fractions of the numbers being compared, but that is not what the language states. There must be a more accurate way of stating what is meant.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.142.36.94 (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It has unfortunately become common to say stupid things like "Connecticut is ten times smaller than Pennsylvania".    It would be more correct to say either "Connecticut is one tenth of the size of Pennsylvania",  or "Pennsylvania is ten times larger than Connecticut".  Just because pinhead TV journalists say things like this all the time,  doesn't make it right.  Feel free to change it.Eregli bob (talk) 06:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Connecticut has ten times the number of states per square kilometer...' Darryl from Mars (talk) 07:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematical language 

message: had to fix a few glaring errors in this page, I'm surprised noone noticed them before, especially under 'properties' section...
someone claimed that "It is the only action which violates parity symmetry P (because it almost never acts on left-handed particles). It is not the only one which violates CP (CP Symmetry)."...
hmmm its a good thing they are wrong because if that were the case, then the sun would not shine, and we would not exist.
the weak force acts ONLY on left handed particles, and right handed ANTIparticles.
someone needs to go back to physics class before they start writing wiki articles.
fixed a few typos too, but didn't get to all of them...could someone who actually has a degree try to clean up this very important article please? - donnie  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.253.121.213 (talk) 19:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I corrected the 'properties' section that donnie supposedly corrected before. Weak force couples to RIGHT-handed particles through the Z boson. The W, on the other hand, couples only to left-handed particles (right-handed anti-particles). When constructing the electroweak theory, you have the symmetry groups SU(2)xU(1): 4 gauge fields. The SU(2) group couples only to left-handed fields, while the U(1) couples to the hypercharge. Two of the fields from SU(2) can be related directly to the two W bosons. The other 2 fields cannot be directly related to a particle, they are mixed. From here you get the photon and the Z fields, which do not have the restriction of coupling only to left-handed particles. Fjpyanez (talk) 22:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

text: I fixed some mistakes and (hopefully) improved tha language of one section. Dauto (talk) 20:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  corrections 

message: In the article, "the emission of electrons by protons or positrons by neutrons in atomic nuclei" probably does not obey the charge conservation law. Or am I wrong? --FDominec (talk) 20:47, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emission of electrons by protons... 

message: "Its most familiar effect is beta decay 
(or the emission of electrons by protons or positrons by neutrons in atomic nuclei) and the associated radioactivity"
the electron and positron has switched places
should be:
"emission of positrons by protons (forming neutrons) or electrons by neutrons (forming protons) in atomic nuclei"  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.252.22.178 (talk) 06:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake 

message: Should the Z boson be mentioned in the weak interaction section?  It seems to me that this is a prediction of electroweak theory, not a weak exchange particle.  -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 10:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Weak interaction, as a low-energy manifestation of the electroweak force, needs the Z boson in order to be completely defined. If you take the historical approach, then the Z (or neutral current), entered the picture after the first attempts of building a weak theory, and I can understand your objection. However, in the current weak theory the Z boson plays an important role in many low-energy processes (by low-energy, I mean below the unification scale), like pure neutrino scattering, which can only take place through its exchange. Moreover, all books I've consulted about weak interaction (regardless of the difficulty) mention the Z. Fjpyanez (talk) 10:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We seem agreed historically. I've just looked at Ta-Pei Cheng; Ling-Fong Li (1983). Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics.  which has an interesting subsection "Weak interactions before gauge theory" (pages 336-9) which explains the Fermi current and explicitly excludes neutral currents from the pre-unification weak interaction. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 11:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: One aspect that I forgot to mention is that if you explicitly exclude neutral currents, that opens the door to the statement "weak interaction involves only left-handed fields/particles", which is plain wrong. That was the correction that I originally wanted to make. We had a discussion about this during a seminar and a colleague looked it up later and found the error. On the other hand, I think that the request of 'Mrnatural' of providing a little history is well overdue, that would clarify the picture. I'll see if I have some time to start it, any help will be well received. Best, Fjpyanez (talk) 17:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: But is it plain wrong?  Was the "error" the Z boson? I think if we get the historical context correct we can see that it may be correct.  The weak interaction was only posited to explain, via radioactive decay, the creation (and destruction by implication) of neutrinos - which are all left handed.  We're all agreed on the physics here, so it just a case of where we draw the boundary between the early weak interaction and the polished electroweak interaction. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 18:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I definitely concur with your statement that we agree in the physics behind all of this. The question here is whether the article should reflect the "modern" view of weak interaction, as the electroweak interaction after symmetry is broken, or the original V-A / weak theory of left-handed fields. For simplicity, I think the original theory could be the one discussed in detail here, as long as the implications of electroweak unification are mentioned in a section. If that seems reasonable to the people interested and discussing the article, I can make some changes during the week to go in this direction. Best, Fjpyanez (talk) 13:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Since we already have an electroweak article, I agree that it is the original theory should be discussed in detail here, along will how this fits into the modern electroweak theory.  I'm a bit hazy on how the V-A currents relate to left-handed fields (V-A currents are composed of purely left-handed fermions?), so I look forward to being educated on the subject. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 13:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Z boson]]

message: I agree that this section should be made more accessible to the non-expert.  For what it's worth, an excellent discussion of the weak interaction (and of particle physics and the fundamental forces) can be found at www.learner.org/courses/physics.  This discussion is aimed at the non-scientist, yet goes into a reasonable amount of detail.  (And, no, I am not associated in any way with the site or the people who developed it.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davem62 (talk • contribs) 21:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  good explanation for non-scientists 

message: I removed this paragraph added by editor Poppit:
:Whereras the strong nuclear force is the binding force which bonds quarks to one another to form hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, the weak nuclear force binds together the individual quarks. Weak decay, usually in the form of beta decay, is the symptom of an individual quark decaying, typically into a different type of (lower mass) quark.
First of all, the weak force affects both quarks and leptons. Second, quarks and leptons are elementary particles. What does Poppit mean when he writes that "individual quarks" are "bound together" by the weak force? Ptrslv72 (talk) 16:55, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Where the boson is emitted (i.e. a W boson), it immediately decays. The decay products are predictable in accordance with another well understood set of probabilities. The highest proabability is that it will decay either into an electron and an electron anti-neutrino, or into a positron and an electron neutrino:
in principle a real W boson can decay with equal probability in any charged-lepton+neutrino pair. The probability for decays into quark pairs are more complicated due to the CKM mixing, but the total probability for decays into quarks is roughly twice the total probability for decays into leptons. However, we are talking here of a virtual W boson emitted in the decay of a real quark. Only the decay channels in which the sum of the masses of the decay products is smaller than the mass of the parent particle are allowed. This is why a down quark can only decay in an up quark plus electron and neutrino, while the decay of a charm quark might also involve a muon (or be purely hadronic). The idea that we can decompose the decay in 1) a quark decaying in another quark and a W boson with 2) the W subsequently decaying in leptons (or lighter quarks) as if they were independent processes is too simplistic. Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:34, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

text: OK, I've salvaged what I think is reasonable from Poppit's contributions, and made the above change (reducing it to two possible interactions). What are your thoughts? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  16:54, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made a few extra changes hoping to further clarify that W decay and exchange of a virtual W are different concepts. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 18:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More changes 

message: I don't really understand what this statement is trying to say, because particles involved in the neutral current reaction can also be charged. Could anyone make it clearer? 
"The first type is called the "charged current interaction", because the particles which interact through it carry an electric charge, and is responsible for the beta decay phenomenon."
--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 19:04, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I took it from charged current, more or less. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  19:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I don't think it makes much sense at the moment though. (I mean the "because the particles which interact through it carry an electric charge" part.) I don't fully understand the charged current article, which is very technical - hopefully we can make weak interaction a bit more comprehensible than charged current is. --Physics is all gnomes (talk) 19:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the explanation. If people agree with this, then we should also remove the "incorrectly believed" comment from the charged current article to avoid contradicting ourselves.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 13:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charged current explanation 

message: The press release of the 1979 Nobel prize for Glashow, Salam and Weinberg has some nice information for a general audience on the consequences of the weak interaction. Do you think we could we add a quote of some or all of this paragraph, or otherwise include this information somewhere in the article?
--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 20:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consequences of weak interaction for non-technical audience 

message: I removed two recently-added sentences that sounded nonsensical:
:It is not clear why spontaneous weak decay occurs, i.e. what causes a quark to decay into a lower energy state; but it is theorised that it may be due to the Higgs mechanism.
it's very clear why quarks decay: they emit a virtual W boson and are converted in a lighter quark. That's indeed clearly explained the article. I wonder why the person who wrote that sentence thinks that "it may due to the Higgs mechanism". Before even thinking of reinstating the sentence, please explain that.
:The weak interaction typically results in the liberation of electrons, the particles which govern electromagnetism.
As we also explain in the article, the weak interaction affects all quarks and leptons (not just electrons). And what does it mean that electrons "govern electromagnetism"?
Also, the sentence about binding energy sounds fishy to me (to start with, force and energy are two different concepts!). Could the person who wrote it please elaborate on what it means, and provide references?
Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to me  says how they decay, not why. Why, as in what causes the decay, what triggers it? Consider why did George Mallory climb Mount Everest: "Because it's there.". Gah4 (talk) 23:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes to the Introduction

message: The article states: "According to the electroweak theory, at very high energies, the universe has four massless gauge boson fields similar to the photon and a complex scalar Higgs field doublet". I don't think that is correct. The prediction of four massless gauge bosons at very high energies is not a part of the electroweak theory itself (or the Standard model) as far as I can tell. Dauto (talk) 21:16, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You probably already have, but ref #20 looks promising for this. Not sure though, it does go a little over me. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  21:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I can't find it in there. Can we find something or someone else that makes that prediction? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  21:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

text: There are indeed four gauge bosons in the electroweak theory (i.e., three for SU(2) and one for U(1)). I suppose that whoever wrote the sentence just meant that at very high energies (i.e., energies much larger than ~100 GeV, the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking) the electroweak symmetry can approximately be considered exact, and the four gauge bosons can approximately be considered massless (just because their mass is much smaller than the typical energy of the considered processes). It's a quite trivial statement if you think about it. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 00:57, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, what you said is a trivial statement, but that is NOT what is written in the article. The article states that electroweak theory predicts that at some high energy (Temperature would be a better term) exact electroweak symmetry is restored leading to four massless vector gauge bosons. The problem is that that prediction belongs to theories beyond electroweak theory and the standard model such as supersymmetry or Technicolor (physics). Dauto (talk) 02:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: But the electroweak theory does predict that at a critical temperature of about mH/g there is a phase transition above which the SU(2)xU(1) symmetry of the electroweak theory is restored (and the gauge bosons are massless). This does not require any new physics like SUSY or technicolor. (Although these do effect various properties of the phase transition like the latent heat, etc.) There is a lots of literature on this. Just search for "electroweak phase transition" on google scholar. TR 08:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I see. it's a transition similar to the one that occurs for magnets at the Currie temperature. Thank you. Dauto (talk) 09:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is that true? 

message: Hi, I am uncomfortable with this sentence in the "Weak isospin" subsection:
:Weak isospin (T3) is a property of all particles, which governs how particles interact (and in particular which particles) in the weak interaction. Weak isospin is a quantum number; particles not involved in the weak interactions have a value of 0.
In fact, weak isospin determines how particles interact with the SU(2) part of the electroweak interaction. Left-handed fermions have weak isospin of +-1/2, while right-handed fermions have weak isospin 0. As a result, right-handed fermions do not interact with W bosons. However, even right-handed fermions have non-zero hypercharge, therefore they do interact with Z bosons. In the sentence above we appear to be saying that, e.g., the interaction of a right-handed electron with a Z boson is not "weak interaction". This leads us back to the issue (discussed a few sections above) of what we really mean by weak interaction, as opposed to the modern description of electroweak interaction. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 09:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest merging the sections, in fact I might be bold and do it myself if I get the chance. That way, we can make it clear about right-handed antiparticles (for example). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  17:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weak Isospin  

message: Isn't the production of deuterium in stars a result of the beta decay of Helium-2? (Whose more common decay mode is double proton emission, of course.) Hcobb (talk) 01:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Production of deuterium vs beta decay 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Fundamental interaction which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 11:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: the way the section talks about higgs bosons is out of date with the main article about higgs bosons Higgs_boson  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.42.5.57 (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electro weak theory section needs updating  

message: The article mentions fission as an example of weak interaction.  As I understood it, it is the result of the strong interaction (liquid drop model) and electromagnetic repulsion of the protons.  I don't count the beta decay in fission products as part of fission itself.  Thermal neutron fission also depends on neutron energy levels in the nucleus.  Is that related to weak interaction?  Gah4 (talk) 05:58, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Having just tweeked the sentence on this in the first paragraph of the lede, I agree it is a little odd.  Contemplating what the intention was, I think the notion was that the weak interaction comes into play after fission when the resulting fragments are neutron rich, hence undergo beta decay.  Hence the intense flux of neutrinos from nuclear reactors.  Perhaps also responsible at some point for neutrons that induce fission?  It does need better clarity (if not correction). Bdushaw (talk) 18:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, but if it is after fission, then it isn't really part of fission. More specifically, it doesn't affect the fission rate. I suppose decay of fission products is part of the energy generated in a fission power plant. Much of it is too delayed to matter in a bomb. Unless there is a reference for it, I would suggest removing the comment. Gah4 (talk) 00:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no clear opinion on how to proceed, other than I agree something should be done.  The weak interaction seems to be playing a role in, while not a fission event itself, the fission process. For example, the chain of reactions leading to plutonium requires transmutations by beta decay.  But if one were to assemble an A-bomb and then turn off the weak interaction, would the bomb still explode?  I think so...  But I suspect nuclear reactions would not proceed the same way in the absence of the weak interaction.  A reference would certainly be essential. Bdushaw (talk) 20:10, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fission? 

message: Substituted at 10:20, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: I just want to thank all the editors who wrote and crafted this well-written introductory paragraph. Bearian (talk) 18:42, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro. 

message: I join those who ask for a little more.  (See sections "Some help here please" and others).   I'm a pretty bright guy (I've been an invited guest lecturer at MIT in my field), but I'm not getting information here that helps me understand.
I think the problem is that the whole article is directed to "looking down" to the underlying quantum causes.  The intro would be a lot clearer if it had a paragraph "looking up" to effects, maybe a list of the effects visible vis-a-vis the basic Bohr particles we're more familiar with.  I think the starting point is just a list of phenomena:
* beta decay (and a phrase or two about how two protons get kicked out of the nucleus)
* decay of a neutron into a proton, electron, and neutrino
* what else?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.169.56.27 (talk) 13:09, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: the value of g_em ist given with :\frac{e}{\sqrt{\varepsilon_0\hbar c}} = \sqrt{4\pi\alpha} \approx 0.30282212 in the article Coupling_constant#Gauge_coupling, that is far more than the here mentioned 1/100! Ra-raisch (talk) 21:23, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  electromagnetic coupling constant  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: With Heisenberg's uncertainty a radius of action may be explained. At speed of light the range would be (using reduced Compton wave-length rC = λC / 2π):
:r_c = c_0 t_v = \hbar/2c_0m = r_C/2.
Regarding kinetic energy and relativity the speed of light is not optimal for a long range:
:r_v = v_v t_v = v_v\hbar/2c_0^2m\gamma \le \text{max}(\beta/\gamma) \cdot r_C/2,
but with max(\beta / \gamma) = \sqrt{\text{max}(\beta^2-\beta^4)} = 1/2  at v = c/\sqrt{2} = 0,7071 \, c the expected range of action may be calculated estimated:
:r_L = r_C/4.
This gives for (m_Z \approx m_W \approx 1,5 \cdot 10^{-25}kg):
:r_{w} = \text{max}(\tfrac{\beta}{\gamma}) r_C/2 = r_C/4 < 0,7 \cdot 10^{-18} m.
Ra-raisch (talk) 20:09, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  radius of action 

message: The article says that "A particularly extreme example is the weak-force decay of a free neutron, which takes about 15 minutes". Does this mean literally that the decay starts at a given time and takes 15 minutes or does it mean that free neutrons last for 15 minutes (presumably on average) before decaying, and the speed of the actual decay is quicker? If it's actually a 15 minute decay process, how is that observed and what is going on to take so long? If it's not, the article would benefit from clarification of speed of decay versus time before decay. 85.211.230.100 (talk) 12:10, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Sigh... you are inventing a bogus issue out of whole cloth. There are already sufficiently many wikilinks in the article to particle decay, radioactive decay, etc... to dispel any bogus expectations of a "speed of decay" issue. All time constants and adjectives "fast", "slow", etc... always refer only to survival probabilities in QM and particle physics.  I would think that "any" discussion of such a bogus "versus" conceptual dichotomy would only muddy the waters and invite the reader to "absolutely Not think about condors flying in the sunset laying eggs in flight"!   13:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speed of decay 

message: I'm confused - how is the weak interaction an interaction?  It seems to me that there's only one particle at the start of any "weak interaction", so what's it interacting with?  Like, beta-decay, you start with a neutron, which then emits a W- boson which subsequently decays.  So, what's the neutron interacting with initially?  What am I missing? XinaNicole (talk) 17:41, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: In relativistic quantum field theory distinctions between past and future are rendered moot by line reversal. So the neutron interacts with the proton and the W it mutates to, or, in summary, the proton, electron and antineutrino in its future. Formally, the interaction is the same as an antineutrino interacting with a neutron to produce a proton and an electron.Cuzkatzimhut (talk) 19:02, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Interaction" 

message: May citations on experimental results be provided?
For leptons, is there any central tendency for a neutrino to absorb a W boson at a particular phase in oscillation?
For quarks, are CKM matrix elements an aggregation of varieties of interactions taking and, consequently, the observed flavour change? For example, under beta decay, a down quark changes to an up quark and this interaction contributes to the (0,0) CKM cell value? Are elements of the CKM matrix useful in designating the probability a charged-current interaction changes a quark to a particular flavour, as described in the section on interaction types? May kinds of interactions be listed?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.183.152.130 (talk) 02:10, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weak Charged-current Interactions