K-mesons—which are classified within the hadron group of subatomic particles. Other annihilation reactions also occur. Nucleons (protons and neutrons), for example, annihilate antinucleons (antiprotons and antineutrons), and the energy is also carried away in the form of particles such as pi-mesons and K-mesons and their…

…and negative pi-mesons, and the K-meson and the anti-K-meson, plus a long list of baryons and antibaryons. Most of these newly discovered particles have too short a lifetime to be able to combine with electrons. The exception is the positive muon, which, together with an electron, has been observed to…

The kaon (also called the K⁰ meson), discovered in 1947, is produced in high-energy collisions between nuclei and other particles. It has zero electric charge, and its mass is about one-half the mass of the proton. It is unstable and, once formed, rapidly decays…

…the competing decay modes of K-mesons, which occur via the weak force, have led to a better understanding of parity (the property of an elementary particle or physical system that indicates whether its mirror image occurs in nature) and its nonconservation in the weak interaction. CP violation (the violation of…

…decay of subatomic particles called K-mesons, the Chinese-born physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang proposed in 1956 that parity is not always conserved. For subatomic particles three fundamental interactions are important: the electromagnetic, strong, and weak

…in the decay of charged K-mesons into two or three pi-mesons prompted the Chinese-born American theoretical physicists Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee to examine the experimental foundation of parity conservation itself. In 1956 they showed that there was no evidence supporting parity invariance in so-called weak interactions. Experiments conducted…

…−1/3e) occur as components of K mesons and various other extremely short-lived subatomic particles that were first observed in cosmic rays but that play no part in ordinary matter.

…decay of subatomic particles called K mesons could violate the general conservation law for weak interactions known as CP symmetry. Those experiments in turn necessitated physicists’ abandonment of the long-held principle of time-reversal invariance. The work done by Fitch and Cronin implied that reversing the direction of time would not…

…same particle (now called the K-meson). Because the law of parity conservation prohibits a single particle from having decay modes exhibiting opposite parity, the only possible conclusion was that, for weak interactions at least, parity is not conserved. They suggested experiments to test their hypothesis, and in 1956–57 Chien-Shiung Wu,…

…of decay of kaons (K-mesons).

…the newly discovered mesons—the so-called K meson—seemed to exhibit decay modes into configurations of differing parity. Since it was believed that parity had to be conserved, this led to a severe paradox.