In 1960, a team at CERN began looking for something new. Antonino Zichichi led the Bologna, CERN, Frascati group in this early search. They hoped to find a heavy lepton that had not yet been seen. The idea was to create a sequential particle similar to the electron but much heavier. Zichichi developed a specific method to look for such a particle. He tested his ideas at the ADONE facility starting in 1969. That accelerator did not have enough energy to produce the target particle. The experiment failed to find what they were hunting. Yung-su Tsai published an article in 1971 that independently anticipated the existence of this new particle. His theoretical work provided a roadmap for future experiments.
Heavy Mass And Short Life
A tau particle carries a negative electric charge and spins like other elementary particles. Its mass is significantly larger than that of muons or electrons. This extra weight gives it unique physical properties compared to lighter leptons. The lifetime of a tau is extremely short by subatomic standards. Because of its great mass, it does not emit as much bremsstrahlung radiation as electrons do. Bremsstrahlung refers to braking radiation emitted when charged particles slow down. Consequently, tau particles can be more penetrating than electrons under certain conditions. Their range is mainly determined by their decay length rather than distance traveled while slowing. Time dilation extends their path only at ultra-high velocities above petaelectronvolt energies. Without such extreme speed, their short life limits how far they travel before decaying.Decay Into Hadrons And Leptons