Where are mesons found?
(1) Cosmic rays
(2) X-rays
(3) Gamma rays
(4) Laser beam
Answer: (1) Mesons are not produced by radioactive decay but appear in nature only as short-lived products of very high-energy interactions in the matter, between particles made of quarks. In cosmic ray interactions, for example, such particles are ordinary protons and neutrons. Mesons are hadronic subatomic particles composed of one quark and one anti-quark, bound together by a strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of sub-particles, they have a physical size, with a radius roughly one femtometre, which is about 2/3 the size of a proton or neutron. All mesons are unstable, with the longest-lived lasting for only a few hundredths of a microsecond. Charged mesons decay (sometimes through intermediate particles) to form electrons and neutrinos.
