Lesson Plan: Feynman Diagrams Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to interpret Feynman diagrams and determine which interactions are possible using Feynman diagrams.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- recognize Feynman diagrams that show annihilation, pair production, electrostatic repulsion, beta-minus decay, beta-plus decay, leptonic decay of higher-mass leptons, and weak decay of common mesons and baryons,
- work out what the corresponding nuclear equation that represents a Feynman diagram is,
- identify virtual particles in Feynman diagrams,
- recall that the arrows on particle lines must point forward in time,
- recall that the arrows on antiparticle lines must point backward in time,
- identify missing particles in Feynman diagrams of common interactions,
- determine if the interaction shown by a Feynman diagram is possible based on the conservation of lepton number, baryon number, and electric charge.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the names, basic properties, and symbols of all of the fermions and bosons and their antiparticles,
- what hadrons, mesons, baryons, and hyperons are,
- some more common mesons and baryons,
- what lepton number, baryon number, strangeness, and charm are.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- the Higgs boson,
- decay modes and branching ratios.
