Could Electrons Evaporates by High Temperature?

[Future JPL Space Engineer]

Could Electrons (or other fundamental particles) evaporate by high temperature

like stars in the universe?

[John Cuthber]

Do you mean like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermionic_emission

[ajb]

Or do you mean all turn into photons? If so then not according to the standard model of particle physics as we have conservations laws for electric charge, baryon number and fermion number.

 

The problem of what happens to a black hole when it evaporates is open and this does seem to violate these conservation laws.

[derek w]

Or do you mean all turn into photons? If so then not according to the standard model of particle physics as we have conservations laws for electric charge, baryon number and fermion number.

 

The problem of what happens to a black hole when it evaporates is open and this does seem to violate these conservation laws.

If we have conservation laws for electric charge,then how come we have plenty of electrons,where are all the positrons?

[ajb]

If we have conservation laws for electric charge,then how come we have plenty of electrons,where are all the positrons?

In any interaction in the standard model we have a local conservation of electric charge. Thus we could not have a single electron evaporate into a photons. An electron positron pair can annihilate and produce two photons. However, in the Universe there is an imbalance of matter and antimatter, this is good otherwise there would have been complete annihilation in the early Universe. Thus I don't think that without some exotic physics all the particles in the standard model could just turn into photons. There is also conservation of fermion number here to take care of.

 

It looks like the exotic thing needed could be black hole evaporation, but this is still not well understood.

[derek w]

In any interaction in the standard model we have a local conservation of electric charge. Thus we could not have a single electron evaporate into a photons. An electron positron pair can annihilate and produce two photons. However, in the Universe there is an imbalance of matter and antimatter, this is good otherwise there would have been complete annihilation in the early Universe. Thus I don't think that without some exotic physics all the particles in the standard model could just turn into photons. There is also conservation of fermion number here to take care of.

 

It looks like the exotic thing needed could be black hole evaporation, but this is still not well understood.

Does this mean that the excess of electrons in the universe were created at the event horizon of black holes, and the positrons have been sucked in to the black holes?

[swansont]

If we have conservation laws for electric charge,then how come we have plenty of electrons,where are all the positrons?

 

The charge on a proton is indistinguishable from that of a positron, so having a positron isn't a requirement for charge to be conserved or a system to be neutral.

Does this mean that the excess of electrons in the universe were created at the event horizon of black holes, and the positrons have been sucked in to the black holes?

 

No, it does not.

 

Cosmological matter/antimatter asymmetry is as-yet an unsolved problem, but violation of CP conservation has been observed in other systems. The mechanism that gave us more matter than antimatter may occur at much higher energies than we can currently probe, but were present in the early universe.

[Future JPL Space Engineer]

Do you mean like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermionic_emission

Oh sorry, I was meaning such as plasma.

[AndresKiani]

Not into pure radiation, no. Instead you would perhaps witness a collection of weekly associated field of interacting charged particles.

Oh sorry, I was meaning such as plasma.

 

Yeah plasmic state you said it yourself.. however I wouldn't say the electrons evaporate. I would think of it rather as the process of ionization learned in general chemistry and condensed matter physics.

Edited December 9, 2014 by AndresKiani