From the Big Bang to Dark Energy week 2 homework solutions

Week 2 Homework 1 solutions

Beelow are the questions and answers for week 2 homework 1. A quick answer key is:
(1) c (2) b, c, and d (3) b (4) a (5) a, c, and d (6) b (7) c
1. It is energetically favorable (as in you get energy out of the reaction) to fuse elements up to
(a) Helium
(b) Carbon
(c) Iron
(d) Uranium
Answer and additional comments:
Go look at the plot of binding energies as a function of the number of nucleons in the homework
2 section. The peak of it is at iron, 56 Fe. Because there is no other nucleus that you can go
to and get energy out of, fusion stops once you get to iron.
2. Youre an astronomer. Which of the following do you consider metals? Mark all that apply.
(a) Helium
(b) Oxygen
(c) Silicon
(d) Iron
Answer and additional comments: The key here is the idea of what an astronomer
considers metals. This was stated in the video lectures when the professor talked about
metallicity.
3. Particle accelerators act like telescopes into the past and allow us to study information about
the Big Bang because
(a) By crashing particles together at speeds nearly the speed of light, wormholes are created
that allow time travel back to the earliest moments in the universe
(b) The high energies of these collisions mimic the high energy conditions just
after the Big Bang
(c) Crashing particles together at high energies creates black holes, and thus mimics the
creation of our Universe
(d) The decays and spread of particles produced in these high energy collisions mimic the
way the Universe expanded just after the Big Bang
4. The majority of mass in our bodies is due to
(a) The kinetic energy of quarks inside protons and neutrons
(b) The rest mass of electrons and quarks resulting from their interaction with the Higgs
boson
(c) Equal amounts from the above two options
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(d) An intrinsic rest mass associated with quarks and electrons, just as they have an intrinsic
spin
5. Particle accelerators can be found in (mark all that apply)
(a) Hospitals
(b) A modern flatscreen television
(c) Fancy science labs
(d) Your grandparents television
6. The Higgs boson is essential for the formation of atoms because
(a) It creates an attractive force between electrons and protons, allowing them to form
atoms.
(b) It effectively gives the electron a rest mass, making it so that the electrons
do not move at the speed of light and can therefore be bound by nuclei.
(c) It fuses nuclei together in stars, thus forming the heavier elements necessary for life.
(d) You need a spinless particle to form elements, and the Higgs is the only spinless particle
we know of.
7. A proton has a radius of about 1 fm (1015 m). Use dimensional analysis with the speed of
light c = 3 108 m/s, the reduced Plank constant ~ = 1.1 1034 Js to estimate the kinetic
energy of quarks inside a proton. Recall the conversion between Joules and electron volts,
1 eV = 1.6 1019 J, and that MeV = mega electron volts, i.e. 1 MeV = 106 eV.
Note that the point of this problem, and similar ones, is not just to do some conversion of
numbers. The point is that once you know one scale (in this case a length scalethe size of
the proton), it encodes a lot of information and characterizes the typical scales in the system
(in this case the length scale also sets the energy scale).
(a) The kinetic energy is about 3 MeV
(b) The kinetic energy is about 50 MeV
(c) The kinetic energy is about 200 MeV
(d) The kinetic energy is about 2000 MeV
Answer and additional comments:
The TA videos on dimensional analysis, particularly the second video, should be helpful if
you are confused about this problem. We want to use dimensional analysis to take a length
scale (the size of the proton) and convert it to an energy scale. Notice that the dimensions of
~ and c are [~] = Energy time and [c] = length/time. If we multiply them together we get
something with dimensions of energy times length, [~c] = Energy length. Since we want to
convert a length scale into an energy scale, there is a unique way of combining the variables:
E=

~c
200 MeV
d

Week 2 HW 2 answers
Answers (see below for more detailed answers to some problems):
(1) d (2) b (3) d (4) b (5) a and d (6) c
(7a) For r = 2 1020 , 2 1018 , and 2 1016 m, the ratio VW /VEM is 0.99, 0.37, and 3.7 1044 ,
respectively. (these are problems 7-9 on the website)
(7b) The length scale is 100 GeV (this is problem 10 on the website)
(7c) (i) 20 GeV (ii) 9 GeV (iii) 26 GeV (also acceptable is 25 GeV). (These are problems 11-13 on
the website.)
(8) 130 MeV is released in the fission process. (This is problem 14 on the website.)
1. The Sun gets lighter by 4 million tons (4 109 kg) every second. Using Einsteins famous
equationE = mc2 figure out how much energy is released by the Sun every second (called
the solar luminosity). Now lets make a comparison. Through a chemical reaction, one
kilogram of the explosive TNT (dynamite) releases 4.2 million joules. If you were to have an
object made entirely of TNT, what size would it be closest to in order to release the same
amount of energy as the sun does every second?
(a) 7 million people weighing on average 70 kg
(b) 7 billion people weighing on average 70 kg
(c) 1 Mount Everests
(d) 10000 Mount Everests
Answer: By Einsteins equation, the Sun releases (4 109 kg)(3 108 m/s)2 = 3.6 1026 J
every second. A kilogram of TNT releases 4.2 106 J, so this is equivalent to detonating


1 kg TNT
= 8.6 1019 kg of TNT
3.6 1026 J
4.2 106 J
every second. This is about 10,000 times the mass of Mount Everest! To do the estimate
on Mt Everests mass I assumed it was basically constant density of about 3 g/cm3 (this is
about average for rockit is about three times denser than water) and took it be roughly a
kg
3
15 kg.
box with a size equal to its height, M r3 3000 m
3 (9000 m) 2 10
2. As a follow up to the previous problem, if the Sun was sustaining itself by TNT explosions,
how long would it last for? The mass of the Sun is 2 1030 kg.
(a) About 5 days
(b) About 700 years
(c) About 20,000 years
(d) About 3 million years
Answer:
From the previous problem we see that the Sun would be getting rid of about 9 1019 kg per
second. The time it would take for the entire mass of the Sun to be used is then


2 1030 kg
1 yr
10
t=
2 10 s
700 years
9 1019 kg/s
3 107 s
3. When did heavier elements form?
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(a) All natural occuring elements were formed very early in the Universe during Big Bang
nucleosynthesis
(b) All natural occuring elements come from fusion of lighter elements by stars burning
(c) Stellar burning fuses elements up to a certain size. Elements heavier than this size are
formed during supernova
(d) Stellar burning fuses elements up to a certain size. It is not precisely known
where elements heavier than this one size come from.
4. Radiation is a useful tool in treating cancerous tumors. In the past few decades, proton
beam radiation therapy (PBRT) has been developed as a new option for treating tumors.
PBRT accelerates protons in a synchotron and then delivers them into the body. The main
difference between proton therapy and radiation therapy with, for example x-rays, is that the
proton loses most of its energy just before it stops. This means that the radiation dose can
be dumped at a very specific location; a proton enters the body and emits little radiation
until it reaches the tumor and stops, emitting a large amount of radiation to damage the
tumor. This is shown in figure 1; the peak of radiation dosage at the end of the protons path
is known as the Bragg peak. Currently there are about 40 PBRT treatment centers in the
world, with about 25% of them in the US and 25% in Japan.
Now imagine you are a doctor and you have three patients with the following types of cancerous tumors:
(i) Patient 1 has a breast tumor just below her skin
(ii) Patient 2 has a small brain tumor, a few mm in size, located in the middle of the brain.
(iii) Patient 3 has a brain tumor that is a few cm in size and located in the middle of the
brain.
You want to treat each patient with some form of radiation therapy. How do you pair the
patients with the curves in figure 1?
(a) 1 (a), 2 (c), 3 (b)
(b) 1 (c), 2 (c), 3 (b)
(c) 1 (c), 2 (b), 3 (a)
5. The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking was discussed in the lecture. The basic idea
is to compare the before and after state of a system and ask whether they have the same
symmetry. In lecture, Professor Murayama considered the case of water freezing to ice. The
before state of liquid water had a three-dimensional rotational symmetryin water, every
direction looks the same. The frozen ice has a crystalline shape, so not every direction looks
the same and the after state does not possess the three dimensional rotational symmetry.
Which of the following are examples of spontaneous symmetry breaking?
(a) A plastic ruler is put in a vice grip horizontally.
tightened and the ruler bends down.

The vice grip is then

(b) A plastic ruler is put in a vice grip horizontally. You push down on the middle of the
ruler and it subsequently bends down.
(c) A skateboarder rolling in a half-pipe eventually settles to the bottom of the half-pipe.
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Figure 1: The radiation dosage as a function of depth in tissue. Protons lose most of their energy
right before they stop, resulting in the so-called Bragg peak seen in curve (a). The proton beam
can be modulated to spread out the Bragg peak, as seen in curve (b). For comparison, an x-ray is
shown in curve (c).
(d) At a dinner table the silverware is placed on top of the plates. After sitting
down to the table, some people put the silverware to the right of the plate,
while others put it to the left of the plate.
Answer (also see the diagrams at the end of the solutions):
For (a) the ruler will want to bend when the vice grip is tightened. It can either bend up or
bend down, both are equally likely. We would say that the before state possesses an up-down
symmetry. When the ruler bends down, it breaks the up-down symmetry. Contrast this
against example (b), where you are pushing down on the ruler at first. Since you are pushing
on the ruler, there is no up-down symmetrythe force in the downward direction breaks the
equal up-down likelihood.
In (d), when the silverware is on top of the plates there is a left-right symmetry to the problem.
By choosing a side of the plate to put the silverware on we have broken this symmetry. Since
left and right were equally likely to have the silverware we say the left-right symmetry is
spontaneously broken.
Note that (c) is not an example of spontaneous symmetry breaking. As the skateboarder rolls
in the halfpipe there is a left-right symmetry. When the skateboarder settles at the bottom,
there is still a left-right symmetry. A good exercise is to come up with a skate ramp that is
left-right symmetric, but when the skateboarder stops at the bottom of the ramp he breaks
the left-right symmetry.
6. In figure 2 is a plot of the binding energy per nucleon as a function of the number of nucleons
in a nucleus. After a star fuses all of it hydrogen into 4 He, it begins to burn the helium.
What is the second most likely nucleus to be produced? Notational comment: A nucleon
is a proton or a neutron. The notation, for example, 56
26 Fe denotes an iron nucleus (Fe) which
has 26 protons and 30 neutrons and therefore 56 nucleons.
(a) 84 Be resulting from 2 42 He 84 Be
5

Figure 2: Binding energy per nucleon as a function of number of nucleons in a nucleus.

(b)
(c)
(d)

12 C
6
16 O
8
28 Si
14

resulting from 3 42 He 126 C

resulting from 3 42 He 126 C followed by

12 C
6

+ 42 He 168 O

resulting from 7 42 He 28
14 Si

Answer:
We can figure this out by process of elimination. Looking at the plot we see that 8 Be has
less binding energy than 4 He, so it is not energetically favorable to fuse helium into berylium.
Next we have 12 C: this has a larger binding energy than 4 He so we can get energy out of
fusing three helium nuclei into one carbon nucleus. This is the first most likely nucleus to be
produced after 4 He. Next we see that 16 O has more binding energy than 12 C, so we can get
energy out by fusing a helium nucleus with a carbon nucleus into an oxygen nucleus. This is
the second most likely element to be produced after 4 He. Note that while 28 Si has a larger
binding energy than carbon or oxygen, bringing 7 4 He nuclei very close together to undergo
the fusion is extroardinarly unlikely.
7. In the lecture Professor Murayama stated that the weak force acts only on a billionth of a
nanometer, i.e 1018 m. This is in contrast to the electromagnetic force which is long ranged.
Mathematically, the potential of such interactions is given by
er/a
weak potential
r
1
electromagnetic potential
V (r) = EM
r
V (r) = W

For the weak potential, the parameter a controls the range of the force. This type of potential
is called a Yukawa potential.

(a) Taking a = 2 1018 m and assuming W = W , what are the ratios of the weak
potential to the EM potential at r = 2 1020 , 2 1018 , and 2 1016 meters? Give
your answer to two significant figures.
(b) Use dimensional analysis with the reduced Plank constant ~ and the speed of light c to
convert the length scale a to an energy. Give the energy in units of GeV (giga-electron
volt, 1 GeV = 109 eV).
(c) Look up the mass of the W and Z bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson. Give
the difference between the energy scale you found in (b) and these masses. Round to
the nearest whole number and take the absolute value if the answer is negative (e.g if
the difference is 17 enter 17).
Answer:
Please see the attached solutions.
8. Imagine a hypothetical nuclear fission process 220 A1 + n 150 A2 + 63 A3 + 3n + energy. Using
the plot in figure 2, estimate the energy released in this fission process. Hint: you can do this
for the uranium fission process 235 U + n 141 Ba + 92 Kr + 3n + energy and compare it to the
known value (google U 235 fission, for example).
Answer:
Please see the attached solutions.