Exercise 1
Two charged particles traverse identical helical paths in a completely opposite sense in a uniform magnetic field .
(a)
They have equal z-components of momenta.
(b)
They must have equal charges.
(c)
They necessarily represent a particle-antiparticle pair.
(d)
The charge to mass ratio satisfy: .
NCERT’s answer
(d)
(d)Same helix traversed in opposite senses means equal and opposite angular velocities. Opposite senses need opposite-sign charges, so (b) fails; masses stay free, so (a) and (c) are not forced.\[\boldsymbol{\omega}=-\frac{q}{m}\,\mathbf{B}_0 \]
\[\boldsymbol{\omega}_1=-\boldsymbol{\omega}_2\;\Rightarrow\;\frac{q_1}{m_1}\,\mathbf{B}_0=-\frac{q_2}{m_2}\,\mathbf{B}_0 \]
\[\left(\frac{e}{m}\right)_1+\left(\frac{e}{m}\right)_2=0 \]