Size, properties of mesonic matter

Esteemed thinkers and savants:

Years and years ago (probably the 70s) I read an article about mesonic
matter written, I believe, by Daedalus of New Scientist fame.

iirc, he claimed that if you substituted mesons for electrons, you
could create much more compact matter, but I can't remember why
--mesons are smaller perhaps or orbit closer, I'm not sure.

At any rate, assuming the technology could be worked out, how much
smaller could you make, say, a big diamond or a gold ingot, and what
esoteric properties, if any, might such mesonic versions have? Would
it, for example, weight the same?

Please pardon my scientific naivitee in these regards. I am mostly
self-educated.

jD

vivian wrote:

Mesons weight more than electrons. Therefore they have smaller orbits
for a given angular momentum. Atoms made of baryons and mesons will be
many times smaller.


several hundred times


Short lifetimes.


a *little* heavier - most of the weight is in the nuclei, after all

We all are. Some of us are just a little more naïve.

Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

vivian wrote:

There is actually a branch of atomic physics (now creaking into
antiquity) that studied muonic atoms, replacing the electron with its
heavy-set sister, the muon. There was a fella by the name of J.P.
Davidson that did a lot of work in that area.

The lowest-energy orbital of the muon is so compact that it actually
spends a significant portion of its brief but time-dilated life inside
the nucleus, which is of course why the subject was interesting enough
to do all that painstaking work to make muonic atoms happen where one
could look at them.

PD

PD wrote:


Damn man, learn how to read. He said mesonic, not muonic. But apart
from that he may find the information you gave him useful.

Also, check out positronium. An atom is basically a combination of any
two(or more) oppositely charged particles.

An atom made from the pi peson is called pionium.