8.9.1.3. Tau

Table of Contents

Identity and Basic Properties

The tau, written as $\tau^-$ for the particle and $\tau^+$ for the antiparticle, is the heaviest charged lepton. Like the electron and muon, it carries electric charge of magnitude one elementary charge and has spin $\tfrac{1}{2}$. It belongs to the third lepton generation.

The tau is similar in charge and basic role to the electron and muon, but it is much more massive. Its mass is about

$$
m_\tau \approx 1.777\ \text{GeV}/c^2
$$

which is far larger than the electron mass and also much larger than the muon mass. Because of this large mass, the tau can decay into many different lighter particles.

Important tau properties:
$$
q_{\tau^-} = -e, \qquad q_{\tau^+} = +e
$$
$$
m_\tau \approx 1.777\ \text{GeV}/c^2
$$
The tau is a charged lepton of the third generation and has spin $\tfrac{1}{2}$.

Why the Tau Is Special

The electron is stable, and the muon lives long enough to travel noticeable distances in detectors. The tau is different because it is very short lived. Its lifetime is roughly

$$
\tau_\tau \approx 2.9 \times 10^{-13}\ \text{s}
$$

This is extremely brief. A tau usually decays almost immediately after being produced. For this reason, tau particles are not found as ordinary matter around us.

Its large mass is the key reason for its rich behavior. Since the tau is heavy, it has enough energy to decay into both leptonic final states and hadronic final states. This makes it more complex than the electron and muon.

The tau is unstable and decays very quickly:
$$
\tau_\tau \approx 2.9 \times 10^{-13}\ \text{s}
$$
Because it is heavy, it can decay into many lighter particles.

Tau Decay

A tau cannot remain forever because lighter particles with the same total conserved quantum numbers can be produced. The weak interaction is responsible for tau decay.

A common leptonic decay is

$$
\tau^- \to e^- + \bar{\nu}_e + \nu_\tau
$$

Another common leptonic decay is

$$
\tau^- \to \mu^- + \bar{\nu}_\mu + \nu_\tau
$$

The tau can also decay into hadrons plus a tau neutrino. For example,

$$
\tau^- \to \pi^- + \nu_\tau
$$

or into more complicated combinations such as pions and neutral particles.

These decays show that the tau is the only charged lepton heavy enough to decay into hadrons. This is one of its most distinctive features.

Conservation in Tau Decay

Every tau decay must obey conservation laws. Electric charge is conserved, lepton number is conserved, and energy and momentum are conserved.

For example, in the decay

$$
\tau^- \to \mu^- + \bar{\nu}_\mu + \nu_\tau
$$

the electric charge on the left side is $-1$, and on the right side the muon has charge $-1$ while both neutrinos are neutral, so total charge is still $-1$.

The tau lepton number is also balanced because the initial tau is associated with a tau neutrino in the final state. In the electron and muon decay channels, the appearance of the corresponding neutrino and antineutrino ensures that the lepton family numbers are respected.

In tau decay, the following must be conserved:
Electric charge, energy, momentum, and lepton numbers.

Comparison with the Electron and Muon

The three charged leptons have the same electric charge and spin, but they differ strongly in mass and lifetime.

Particle	Symbol	Charge	Approximate mass	Stability
Electron	$e^-$	$-e$	$0.511\ \text{MeV}/c^2$	Stable
Muon	$\mu^-$	$-e$	$105.7\ \text{MeV}/c^2$	Unstable
Tau	$\tau^-$	$-e$	$1777\ \text{MeV}/c^2$	Very unstable

This table shows the main pattern. The tau is much heavier than the other two charged leptons, and that extra mass allows more decay possibilities.

Production of Tau Particles

Because the tau is heavy, it cannot be produced easily in low energy processes. A collision must provide enough energy to create it. High energy accelerators are therefore important tools for studying tau particles.

One possible process is the creation of a tau pair:

$$
e^- + e^+ \to \tau^- + \tau^+
$$

If the center of mass energy is large enough, the pair can be produced and then each tau decays quickly into lighter particles.

Rendering scientific sketch…

Tau pair production in an electron-positron collision

Detecting the Tau

Since the tau decays so quickly, experiments do not usually observe a long direct track from a tau itself. Instead, they infer its presence from its decay products. Physicists look for combinations of particles such as electrons, muons, pions, and missing energy carried away by neutrinos.

The neutrinos are especially important because they often escape the detector without interacting. This means tau decays usually include missing momentum or missing energy, which must be reconstructed indirectly.

Importance of the Tau

The tau helps physicists test the weak interaction and compare the behavior of the three lepton generations. Since it is much heavier than the electron and muon, it is a useful probe of how particle properties depend on mass.

The tau also plays an important role in studies of lepton universality, which is the idea that the charged leptons interact in the same way under the weak force, apart from differences caused by their masses.

The tau is the heaviest charged lepton, and its large mass allows decays that are impossible for the electron and muon, especially decays into hadrons.

A Simple Picture

You can think of the tau as a heavy cousin of the electron. It has the same charge and the same spin, but because it is much heavier, it is unstable and breaks apart quickly into lighter particles. This makes it harder to observe directly, but very valuable in particle physics experiments.

Comments

Please login to add a comment.

Don't have an account? Register now!