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How is the neutral kaon stable?

Physics Asked by A.Sa on March 5, 2021

A neutral kaon is a mix of a particle and antiparticle, in layman’s terms. In layman’s terms, how is this possible without there being annihilation?

One Answer

The kaons don't consist of two particles which are each other's antiparticle. The kaon comes in four varieties:

1,2) an up-quark with an anti-strange-quark ($ubar{s}$) and vice-versa ($bar{u}s$)
3,4) a down-quark with an anti-strange-quark ($dbar{s}$) and vice-versa ($bar{d}s$)

Since the down-quark and strange-quark have the same electric charge, these are the neutral kaons. You can figure out for yourself that the other two have an electric charge of $+1$ and $-1$.

All these four decay rapidly, but not because the two quarks are each other's anti-particle. For more info see this Wikipedia article (it's always handy to look on Wikipedia first before asking a question).

Answered by Deschele Schilder on March 5, 2021

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