Question
Show that the conservation laws forbid the annihilation of isolated orthopositronium in a two-photon process but that two-photon annihilation of parapositronium satisfies the conservation laws.
Step 1
Orthopositronium is a state where the spins of the electron and positron are parallel, while in parapositronium, the spins are antiparallel. Show more…
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Show that the creation of an electron-positron pair (or any particle-antiparticle pair, for that matter) by a single photon is not possible in isolation, that is, that additional mass (or radiation) must be present. (Hint: Use the conservation laws.)
Show that pair production and pair annihilation with only a single photon emitted cannot occur unless some other particle is involved in addition to the pair and the photon.
Prove that a free electron cannot absorb a photon photoelectrically by showing that the conservation of energy and the conservation of momentum cannot be satisfied simultaneously in such a process.
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