Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-1-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2014-resit/9/a/solution

Let denote the proton rest energy and the desired particle's rest energy. For an antiproton of total energy striking a stationary proton, the incoming squared centre-of-mass energy is
For production of the stated single particle, four-momentum conservation requires . Thus
The numerical value uses . It is a total incident energy; the corresponding kinetic energy is . Much of the laboratory energy supplies motion of the outgoing system rather than its invariant mass.
For equal and opposite beam momenta, the laboratory is the centre-of-mass frame. Each beam has the same total energy and their sum is , giving
These are the fixed-target production threshold and collider kinematic comparison for the specified final state. Extra final particles or restrictions from conserved quantum numbers would require a separately specified reaction.

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