🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0KrBH.GIC@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>Quark-catalyzed fusion is for wimps. :-)

Compared to your description of magnetic monopole catalyzed proton decay, I
have to agree :-)

>Still... THAT's a Bussard ramjet powerplant for you!

No kidding.  Just to clarify what's going on, the exchange of virtual X
particles can change quarks into leptons and quarks into antiquarks.  Thus
the proton decay products are a positron and a neutral pion, i.e.,
 
                     +     o
               p -> e  + pi 

However, in order to account for the long lifetime of a proton, the X particle
must be 10^14 times as heavy as a proton (ouch!).  This according to the  
SU(5) grand unified theory.  
 
I didn't know that magnetic monopoles could also mediate such a reaction, too.
However, I was aware that people are looking for them anyway :).  On Feb. 14,
1983, a group from Stanford led by B. Cabrera recorded an event that looked
very much like  the passage of a monopole through their apparatus. 
Unfortunately, as in the case of free quarks, no one has seen a magnetic
monopole since. 

(I might also mention that the X particle plays a role in proton decay
which is somewhat similar to that of the W- particle in neutron decay.)
 
--
Dave Michelson
davem@ee.ubc.ca