Mesons

[Carlobrand]

So let me see if I understand this:

The ship generates a meson. By some method, it causes the meson to travel to and decay within a target ship. The meson decays into ... apparently depends on the kind of meson, but gamma photons is one option. But, as I understand it, the photon generated would be traveling in the same direction as the meson that generated it, no? Or am I not understanding that right. Something to do with conservation of momentum. So the meson beam decays into a gamma beam? Which then interacts with the various atoms at the target and makes life hot for everything.

So, what if you armored the interior of the ship? The bulkheads and such, to contain the blast? Not something I'd think of with modern metals, but that superdense stuff has some promise.

 

[kilemall]

So let me see if I understand this:

The ship generates a meson. By some method, it causes the meson to travel to and decay within a target ship. The meson decays into ... apparently depends on the kind of meson, but gamma photons is one option. But, as I understand it, the photon generated would be traveling in the same direction as the meson that generated it, no? Or am I not understanding that right. Something to do with conservation of momentum. So the meson beam decays into a gamma beam? Which then interacts with the various atoms at the target and makes life hot for everything.

So, what if you armored the interior of the ship? The bulkheads and such, to contain the blast? Not something I'd think of with modern metals, but that superdense stuff has some promise.

If I understand RW meson generation properly and not the game version, it's two PA beams intersecting within a few km of the target ship, generating the muons which would then intersect the ship and cause fusion, probably the thickest part.

So ironically you might aid the process by having internal bulkheaded armor.

I have several armor schemes in mine, one of them is the one you describe, which I call the Nautilus scheme (after the shell).

 

[jcrocker]

Real world mesons are unstable, and decay naturally after a very short time, in the few hundredths of a microsecond.

In the game, they're accelerated with such precision that their natural decay happens right in the middle of the enemy ship. The decay gives off energy, so the explosion from the zillions you fire at them bypasses armour.

I think I read somewhere that there was a fundamental 'oops' between the real-world and game versions, I don't recall what it was. But as every physicist knows that mesons wouldn't act like that, it was the perfect false name cover story for the first generation weapons and the name stuck. Just like the first tanks were pretending to be water tanks, thus the name.

For you reading pleasure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meson takes you to wikipedia's article on mesons.

 

[aramis]

The "Oops" is that π⁰ mesons are NOT low interaction particles.

They are their own antiparticle, too...
They are thought to affect the strong nuclear force...

 

[whulorigan]

The "Oops" is that π⁰ mesons are NOT low interaction particles.

They are their own antiparticle, too...
They are thought to affect the strong nuclear force...

Also, a π⁰ meson is composed of a quark and its own antiquark, which means it decays electromagnetically by self-annihilation into gamma photons (γ) (and decays much faster than a π⁺ or π^-, which decay via the Weak Nuclear interaction first into muons (µ⁺ or µ^-), and then into electrons or positrons (e⁺ or e^-) plus neutrinos (ν_µ/ν_e) and gamma photons (γ).

π⁰: Half-life: 8.4×10⁻¹⁷ sec
π⁺ or π^-: Half-life: 2.6×10⁻⁸ sec
µ⁺ or µ^-: Half-life: 2.2 ×10⁻⁶ sec
e⁺ will annihilate electrons creating gamma photons.

π⁰ mesons would be unaffected by a meson screen based on nuclear principles, whereas the π⁺/π^- or µ⁺/µ^- would be affected by a screen employing weak-nuclear force principles (although muons are categorized as leptons, not mesons).

Also, unlike the pion (π⁺/π⁰/π^-), the muon (µ⁺/µ^-) does penetrate matter fairly well.

Pions are also one of the meson-particles that transmit residual strong nuclear force to adjacent nucleons beyond the normal "containment" experienced by the quarks and gluons within baryons and mesons.

 

[whulorigan]

So let me see if I understand this:

The ship generates a meson. By some method, it causes the meson to travel to and decay within a target ship. The meson decays into ... apparently depends on the kind of meson, but gamma photons is one option. But, as I understand it, the photon generated would be traveling in the same direction as the meson that generated it, no? Or am I not understanding that right. Something to do with conservation of momentum. So the meson beam decays into a gamma beam? ...

The π⁰ meson decays into a pair of gamma photons, which will be moving in the same direction as the original pion, but will also be moving away from one another at the same time. In some cases neutral-pion decay will produce varying degrees of electron-positron pairs as well, though these decay pathways are less common.