Tuesday, November 28, 2017

From amplituhedron to associahedron

Lubos has a nice article (see this) explaining the proposal represented in the newest article by Nima Arkani-Hamed, Yuntao Bai, Song He, Gongwang Yan (see this). Amplituhedron is generalized to a purely combinatorial notion of associahedron and shown to make sense also in string theory context (particular bracketing). The hope is that the generalization of amplituhedron to associahedron allows to compute also the contributions of non-planar diagrams to the scattering amplitudes - at least in N=4 SYM. Also the proposal is made that color corresponds to something less trivial than Chan-Paton factors.

The remaining problem is that 4-D conformal invariance requires massless particles and TGD allows to overcome this problem by using a generalization of the notion of twistor: masslessness is realized in 8-D sense and particles massless in 8-D sense can be massive in 4-D sense.

In TGD non-associativity at the level of arguments of scattering amplitude corresponds to that for octonions: one can assign to space-time surfaces octonionic polynomials and induce arithmetic operations for space-time surface from those for polymials (or even rational or analytic functions). I have already earlier demonstrated that associahedron and construction of scattering amplitudes by summing over different permutations and associations of external particles (space-time surfaces). Therefore the notion of associahedron makes sense also in TGD framework and summation reduces to "integration" over the faces of associahedron. TGD thus provides a concrete interpretation for the associations and permutations at the level of space-time geometry.

In TGD framework the description of color and four-momentum is unified at the level and the notion of twistor generalizes: one has twistors in 8-D space-time instead of twistors in 4-D space-time so Chan-Paton factors are replaced with something non-trivial.

1. Associahedrons and scattering amplitudes

The following describes briefly the basic idea between associahedrons.

1.1 Permutations and associations

One starts from a non-commutative and non-associative algebra with product (in TGD framework this algebra is formed by octonionic polynomials with real coefficients defining space-time surfaces as the zero loci of their real or imaginary parts in quaternionic sense. One can indeed multiply space-time surface by multiplying corresponding polynomials! Also sum is possible. If one allows rational functions also division becomes possible.

All permutations of the product of n elements are in principle different. This is due to non-commutativity. All associations for a given ordering obtained by scattering bracket pairs in the product are also different in general. In the simplest case one has either a(bc) or (ab)c and these 2 give different outcomes. These primitive associations are building bricks of general associations: for instance, abc does not have well-defined meaning in non-associative case.

If the product contains n factors, one can proceed recursively to build all associations allowed by it. Decompose the n factors to groups of m and n-m factors. Continue by decomposing these two groups to two groups and repeat until you have have groups consisting of 1 or two elements. You get a large number of associations and you can write a computer code computing recursively the number N(n) of associations for n letters.

Two examples help to understand. For n=3 letters one obviously has N(3)= 2. For n=4 one has N(4)=5: decompose abcd to (abc)d and a(bcd) and (ab)(cd) and then the 3 letter groups to two groups: this gives 2+2+1 =5 associations and associahedron in 3-D space has therefore 5 faces.

1.2 Geometric representation of association as face of associahedron

Associations of n letters can be represented geometrically as so called Stasheff polytope (see this). The idea is that each association of n letters corresponds to a face of polytope in n-2-dimensional space with faces represented by the associations.

Associahedron is constructed by using the condition that adjacent faces (now 2-D polygons) intersecting along common face (now 1-D edges). The number of edges of the face codes for the structure particular association. Neighboring faces are obtained by doing minimal change which means replacement of some (ab)c with a(bc) appearing in the association as a building bricks or vice versa. This means that the changes are carried out at the root level.

1.3 How does this relate to particle physics?

In scattering amplitude letters correspond to external particles. Scattering amplitude must be invariant under permutations and associations of the external particles. In particular, this means that one sums over all associations by assigning an amplitude to each association. Geometrically this means that one "integrates" over the boundary of associahedron by assigning to each face an amplitude. This leads to the notion of associahedron generalizing that of amplituhedron.

Personally I find it difficult to believe that the mere combinatorial structure leading to associahedron would fix the theory completely. It is however clear that it poses very strong conditions on the structure of scattering amplitudes. Especially so if the scattering amplitudes are defined in terms of "volumes" of the polyhedrons involved so that the scattering amplitude has singularities at the faces of associahedron.

An important constraint on the scattering amplitudes is the realization of the Yangian generalization of conformal symmetries of Minkowski space. The representation of the scattering amplitudes utilizing moduli spaces (projective spaces of various dimensions) and associahedron indeed allows Yangian symmetries as diffeomorphisms of associahedron respecting the positivity constraint. The hope is that the generalization of amplituhedron to associahedron allows to generalize the construction of scattering amplitudes to include also the contribution of non-planar diagrams of at N=4 SYM in QFT framework.

2. Associations and permutations in TGD framework


Also in the number theoretical vision about quantum TGD one encounters associativity constraints leading to the notion of associahedron. This is closely related to the generalization of twistor approach to TGD forcing to introduce 8-D analogs of twistors (see this).

  1. By M8-H duality (H=M4× CP2) the scattering are assignable to complexified 4-surfaces in complexified M8. Complexified M8 is obtained by adding imaginary unit i commutating with octonionic units Ik, k=1,,..,7. Real space-time surfaces are obtained as restrictions to a Minkowskian subspace complexified M8 in which the complexified metric reduces to real valued 8-D Minkowski metric. This allows to define notions like Kähler structure in Minkowskian signature and the notion of Wick rotations ceases to be ad hoc concept. Without complexification one does not obtain algebraic geometry allowing to reduces the dynamics defined by partial differential equations for preferred extremals in H to purely algebraic conditions in M8. This means huge simplifications but the simplicity is lost at the QFT-GRT limit when many-sheeted space-time is replaced with slightly curved piece of M4.

  2. The real 4-surface is determined by a vanishing condition for the real or imaginary part of octonionic polynomial with RE(P) and and IM(P) defined by the composition of octonion to two quaternions: o= RE(o)+ I4IM(o), where I4 is octonionic unit orthogonal to a quaternionic sub-space and RE(o) and IM(o) are quaternions. The coefficients of the polynomials are assumed to be real. The products of octonionic polynomials are also octonionic polynomials (this holds for also for general power series with real coefficients (no dependence on Ik). The product is not however neither commutative nor associative without additional conditions. Permutations and their associations define different space-time surfaces. The exchange of particles changes space-time surface. Even associations do it. Both non-commutativity and non-associativity have a geometric meaning at the level of space-time geometry!

  3. For space-time surfaces representing external particles associativity is assumed to hold true: this in fact guarantees M8-H correspondence for them! For interaction regions associativity does not hold true but the field equations and preferred extremal property allow to construct the counterpart of space-time surface in H from the boundary data at the boundaries of CD fixing the ends of space-time surface.

    Associativity poses quantization conditions on the coefficients of the polynomial determining it. The conditions are interpreted in terms of quantum criticality. In the interaction region identified naturally as causal diamond (CD), associativity does not hold true. For instance, if external particles as space-time surfaces correspond to vanishing of RE(Pi) for polynomials representing particles labelled by i, the interaction region (CD) could correspond to the vanishing of IM(Pi) and associativity would fail. At the level of H associativity and criticality corresponds to minimal surface property so that quantum criticality corresponds to universal free particle dynamics having no dependence on coupling constants.

  4. Scattering amplitudes must be commutative and associative with respect to their arguments which are now external particles represented by polynomials Pi This requires that scattering amplitude is sum over
    amplitudes assignable to 4-surfaces obtained by allowing all permutations and all associations of a given permutation. Associations can be described combinatorially by the associahedron!

    Remark:. In quantum theory associative statistics allowing associations to be represented by phase factors can be considered (this would be associative analog of Fermi statistics). Even a generalization of braid statistics can be considered.

Yangian variants of various symmetries are central piece also in TGD although supersymmetries are realized in different manner and generalized to super-conformal symmetries: these include generalization of super-conformal symmetries by replacing 2-D surfaces with light-like 3-surfaces, supersymplectic symmetries and dynamical Kac-Moody symmetries serving as remnants of these symmetries after supersymplectic gauge conditions characterizing preferred extremals are applied, and Kac-Moody symmetries associated with the isometries of $H$ . The representation of Yangian symmetries as diffeomorphisms of the associahedron respecting positivity constraint encourages to think that associahedron is a useful auxiliary tool also in TGD. 3. Is color something more than Chan-Paton factors?

Nima et al talk also about color structure of the scattering amplitudes usually regarded as trivial. It is claimed that this is actually not the case and that there is non-trivial dynamics involved. This is indeed the case in TGD framework. Also color quantum numbers are twistorialized in terms of the twistor space of CP2, and one performs a twistorialization at the level of M8 and M4× CP2. At the level of M8 momenta and color quantum numbers correspond to associative 8-momenta. Massless particles are now massless in 8-D sense but can be massive in 4-D sense. This solves one of the basic difficulty of the ordinary twistor approach. A further bonus is that the choice of the imbedding space H becomes unique: only the twistor spaces of S4 (and generalized twistor space of M4 and CP2 have Kähler structure playing a crucial role in the twistorialization of TGD. To sum up, all roads lead to Rome. Everyone is well-come to Rome!

See the articles Does M 8 − H duality reduce classical TGD to octonionic algebraic geometry? and From amplituhedron to associahedron.

Addition: Marni Lee Sheppard wrote a thesis in which the notion of associahedron appeared. I remember discussions in some net group. Her motivations came from category theory. Marni had bad luck. Big boys rarely remember who proposed the idea first if she/he is not a name.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Friday, November 24, 2017

Misbehaving Ru atoms and valence electrons as dark electrons

The understanding of dark matter in TGD sense has been evolving rapidly recently. Dark matter at magnetic flux tubes appears to be part of ordinary chemistry and even more a part of organic chemistry. Non-equilibrium-thermodynamics has popped up also as a natural application of tensor networks formed from flux tubes carrying dark matter perform quantum phase transitions. The ideas about how to generate systems with life-like properties are getting rather precise. Dark matter and flux tubes are suddenly everywhere! Also this piece of text relates to this revolution.

In FB I received a link to a highly interesting article. The title of the article was "Breakthrough could launch organic electronics beyond cell phone screens" and is tailored to catch the attention of techno-oriented leader. My attention was however caught for different reasons. The proposed technology would rely on the observation that Ruthenium atoms do not behave as they are expected to behave.

Ru atoms appear as dimers of two Ru atoms in the system considered. Free Ru atoms with one valence electron are however needed: they would become ions by giving up their valence electrons, and these electrons would serve as current carriers making the organic material in question semi-conductor. Irradiation by UV light was found to split Ruthenium dimers to single Ru atoms. If the total energy of Ru dimer is smaller than that for two Ru atoms, thermodynamics predicts that the Ru atoms recombine to dimers after the irradiation ceases. The did not however happen!

Can one understand the mystery in TGD framework?

  1. Ruthenium atoms have one outer s-electron at 5:th shell. One would expect that Ru dimer has valence bond with shared 5s electrons. I recently learned about mysteriously disappearing valence electrons of rare Earth metals caused by heating. This gives strong support for the idea that valence electrons of free atoms can become dark in TGD sense: that is their Planck constant increases and the orbitals become large. The analogy with Rydberg atoms is obvious and it could be that Rydberg atoms in some case have dark valence electrons. Since electron's binding energy scale scales like 1/heff2, the creation of these states requires energy and therefore heating is required. Also irradiation by photons with energy equal to energy difference between ordinary and dark states should give rise to the same phenomenon. This would provide a manner to create dark electrons and a new technology.

  2. This also inspired the proposal that valence bond (thought to be understood in chemistry with inspiration coming from the reductionistic dogma) involves flux tube pair and heff/h= n which is larger than for ordinary quantum theory. This provides new very concrete support for the view that the transitions from atomic physics to chemistry and from chemistry to organic chemistry could involve new physics provided by TGD.

    The step from atomic physics to chemistry with valence bond would involve new physics: the delocalization of valence electrons to flux tubes due to the increase of heff! Valence electrons would be dark matter in TGD sense! The step from chemistry to organic chemistry would involve delocalization of proton as dark proton by similar mechanism and give rise to hydrogen bond and also many other new phenomena.

  3. The increase of heff would reduce the binding energy from the expected. This would be the case for so called ( and somewhat mysterious) high energy phosphate bond. This picture conforms with the fact that biological energy storage indeed relies on valence bonds.

    If this vision is correct, the breaking of valence bond would split the flux tube pair between two Ru atoms by reconnection to flux loops associated with Ru atom. The resulting pair of free Ru atoms would have lower energy than Ru dimer and would be favored by thermodynamics. The paradox would disappear.

A couple of critical questions are in order.
  1. Why irradiation would be needed at all? Irradiation would kick the dimer system over a potential wall separating it from a state two free Ru atoms. Also the magnetic energy of the flux tube would contribute to the energy of dimer and make it higher than that of free state.

  2. Why Ru dimers would not decay spontanously to pairs of free Ru atoms? This is the case if the energy needed to overcome the potential wall is higher than thermal energy at temperatures considered. One could also argue that electronic states with different values of heff/h=n are not in thermal equilibrium: one has far-from-equilibrium thermodynamical state. These electrons would indeed represent dark matter in TGD sense and interact rather weakly with ordinary matter so that it would take time for thermal equilibrium to establish itself.

    TGD indeed leads to the proposal that the formation of states regarded as far-from-thermal equilibrium states in standard physics approach means formation of flux tubes networks with heff/h=n larger than for the original state (see this and this). If this interpretation is correct, then one can also consider the possibility that the energy of the free state is higher than that of the dimer as assumed by the experimenters.

See the article Mysteriously disappearing valence electrons of rare Earth metals and hierarchy of Planck constants or the chapter Quantum criticality and dark matter of "Hyper-finite factors, p-adic length scale hypothesis, and dark matter hierarchy".

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

System of particles able to self-assemble and self-heal in presence of acoustic waves

In previous posting (see also the article) I told about a system of charged plastic balls above electrode with same charge of sign imbedded in plasma of positively charged Argon ions. This system exhibits life-like properties, in particular a sequence of phase transitions between crystal-like with synchronous oscillations and gas-like states. This requires a feed of metabolic energy which is not present. To my view non-equilibrium thermodynamics with stochastic resonance feeding the energy is not enough to explain the finding.

One can develop a model for the system based on TGD inspired quantum biology. This involves the notion of magnetic body carrying dark matter identified as heff=n×h phases; a network of magnetic flux tubes (magnetic body) controlling biological body (now charged plastic balls) and responsible for coherence and synchrony (of the crystal-like phase now); the control of the oscillations of BB by cyclotron radiation (now the plastic ball system) resulting from decays of cyclotron condensates of charged particles (now protons and Ar ions). The source of metabolic energy would come from dark nucleosynthesis explaining nuclear transmutations occurring in living matter and "cold fusion" and serving as source of metabolic energy in prebiotic stage when the chemical energy storage had not yet emerged. Dark analogs of DNA, RNA, tRNA, and amino-acids are dark protons sequences realizing degeneracies of vertebrate genetic code are dark nuclei and can transform to ordinary nuclei and liberate nuclear binding energy so that the hen-egg question about which came first: metabolism or genetic code, is resolved: hen= egg.

Now I found a popular article "Sound waves direct particles to self-assemble, self-heal" telling about another particle system far from thermal equilibrium and exhibiting life like properties. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) demonstrated how particles, floating on top of a glycerin-water solution, synchronize in response to acoustic waves blasted from a computer speaker. The article "Emergence of an enslaved phononic bandgap in a non-equilibrium pseudo-crystal" telling about the study is published in the journal Nature Materials.

In this case there is an energy feed to the system realized as a monochromatic sound wave. The system responds to an incoming sound wave and gradually the average response of the system which is in the beginning of the experiment essentially constant as function of wavelength develops a wave length gap in the response below the wave length of the incoming sound wave. The emergence of forbidden wavelengths can be interpreted as a synchronous response modellable as a reaction of damped oscillation to a driving force at resonance frequency. The video
of the popular article shows how the wave length gap emerges in time scale of 45 minutes. Also the theoretical prediction for the response is given as a curve and is agrees rather nicely with the outcome.

The comment of the co-lead author Chad Ropp, a postdoctoral researcher in Zhang's group is following. "We show that individually 'dumb' particles can self-organize far from equilibrium by dissipating energy and emerge with a collective trait that is dynamically adaptive to and reflective of their environment. In this case, the particles followed the 'beat' of a sound wave generated from a computer speaker."

To my opinion "beat" cannot however mean here what it means usually since this requires that input acoustic signal would be superposition of signals with nearly same frequencies and beat would occur with frequency which is difference of these. This unless one interprets the acoustic signal as beat signal associated with the frequency difference.

The abstract of the article gives a more technical description about what happens.

Material systems that reside far from thermodynamic equilibrium have the potential to exhibit dynamic properties and behaviours resembling those of living organisms. Here we realize a non-equilibrium material characterized by a bandgap whose edge is enslaved to the wavelength of an external coherent drive. The structure dynamically self-assembles into an unconventional pseudo-crystal geometry that equally distributes momentum across elements. The emergent bandgap is bestowed with lifelike properties, such as the ability to self-heal to perturbations and adapt to sudden changes in the drive. We derive an exact analytical solution for both the spatial organization and the bandgap features, revealing the mechanism for enslavement. This work presents a framework for conceiving lifelike non-equilibrium materials and emphasizes the potential for the dynamic imprinting of material properties through external degrees of freedom.

The system has energy feed as acoustic wave (from the left in the video) which gradually shifts the system to the right. Therefore the far from equilibrium thermodynamics without stochastic resonance works satisfactorily. TGD vision might provide a competing quantum description.

Also now the system involves materials appearing in living matter. Glycerin relates closely to glycerol and (glycerol backbone appears in lipids serving as basic building bricks of cell membrane). Glycerin is dissolved in water, which is in a key role in TGD inspired quantum biology. Since I have only access to the abstract of the article, I do not know what is whether the particle are organic material too.

Can one apply the general quantum description to explain the frequency gap?

  1. The metabolic energy feed is now by acoustic oscillations and should induce the phase transition generating magnetic flux tube network containing dark particles having heff= n× h responsible for the synchronous oscillations.

  2. Quantum criticality at the level of the MB could make adaptation possible. The flux tubes with same ratio of L/S of length L and transversal area S scaling like heff/h=n so that L/S remains invariant under scalings of heff correspond to same magnetic energy and cyclotron energies. Adaptation would mean that cyclotron frequency for BE condensate of say protons at magnetic body becomes nearly equal to the frequency of sound wave by a suitable choice of n if the value of magnetic field strength is in reasonable range: this means that flux tubes tune their length and thickness by magnetic motor actions. Note that in pseudo-crystal phase exhibiting life-like aspects it would be MB which drives rather than sound wave. Cyclotron radiation from BE condensates at MB would drive the synchronous oscillations of particles at the nodes of flux tube network performing oscillations (generalization of Alfwen waves to oscillations of flux tube analogous to string vibrations).

  3. The wavelength distribution of the response evolves from an asynchoronous response of the particles to acoustic wave to that corresponding to pseudo-crystal and dictated by the response of MB to acoustic wave. In the initial situation the response does not depend on λ. The response of MB affects the particle system only in a narrow band of wavelengths below λ=&lambda0 and "freezes" it in this range.

  4. The quantum model for the plastic ball system would suggests an analog of entrainment with the acoustic frequency occurring also in brain. Flux tube network would "freeze" the acoustic oscillations of the system of balls in the wavelength gap forcing them to oscillate in phase but with reduced amplitude. The energy would go to the Alfwen waves of MB analogous to lattice oscillations and having a wavelength band around the acoustic wavelength. Due to the "freezing" the amplitude of the oscillations becomes small in the gap. The energy distribution in the wavelength region outside the gap would not be affected.

    The analogs of Alfwen waves are realized as stringy oscillations of magnetic flux tubes at MB. Alfwen waves have a wavelength band around the acoustic wavelength. The wavelength band is analogous to energy bands associated with energy levels of atoms in solids.

  5. The healing of the system would mean a regeneration of the MB under metabolic energy feed. The ability to react to sudden changes in environment might be understood in terms of the ability of MB to adapt in the proposed manner. It would be interesting to see how the system reacts to the change of the acoustic frequency. The model would require change of the value of n.

To sum up, essentially the same quantum model could describe both the system of plastic balls and the recent system. Now acoustic wave would serve as the source of metabolic energy and metabolic energy would be fed to MB. To sum up, essentially the same quantum model could describe both the system of plastic balls and the recent system. Only the source of metabolic energy would be different.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Dark matter explanation for the cosmic ray positron excess favoured

The old PAMELA experiment and perhaps newer ones by Fermi-LAT and AMS-02 have discovered lots of positrons in the cosmic rays, whose flux is generally higher than expected. The energies of positrons show steady rise in the range [10,100] GeV and presumably the rise will continue. Such positrons may originate from dark matter and could amount to an "almost direct detection" of the particles that make up dark matter. There are also other interpretations.

1. Dark matter explanations for the positron excess

Consider first new physics explanations postulating dark matter.

  1. Dark spin 1 particles could decay to electron positron pair. The energy spectrum of energies is however discrete for dominating decay modes. For instance, vector mesons of new hadron physics could produce these events. Many neutral vector mesons say (Psi/J) were discovered in electron-positron annihilation.

  2. Pion-like spin 0 pseudoscalars decaying to electron-positron pairs and gamma rays predicts continuous spectrum. In the case of ordinary pion most decays are to gamma pairs. The decay to electron-positron pair and gamma ray has quite reasonable branching ratio .01. The reason is that the diagram describing this process is diagram for the decay to gamma pair with second gamma decaying to e+e- so that the rate is roughly the rate for the decay to gamma pair multiplied by &alpha_em≈ 1/137. This relation is expected to hold true for the decays of all pion-like states. For the decay to electron positron pair branching ratio about 6.5× 10-8. For pion-like states X the decay X→ e+e- + γ for pion-like state could give a continuous spectrum. The mass of X should be of order 100 GeV for this option.

2. Standard physics explanation for the positron excess

One of the standard physics explanations is that the positrons emerge from pulsars. The beams from pulsars contain electrons accelerated to very high energies in the gigantic magnetic field of pulsar. This beam collides with the matter surrounding the pulsar and both gamma rays and positrons are generated in these interactions.

The standard physics proposal has been put to a test. One can predict the intensity of gamma rays coming from pulsars using standard model physics and deduce from it the density of electrons needed to generate it. Both positrons and gamma rays would be created when electrons from the pulsar are accelerated to very high energies in enormous magnetic field of the pulsar and collide with surrounding matter. This is like particle accelerator. The energies of the produced gamma rays and also positrons extend to TeV range, which corresponds to the energy range for LHC. It turns out that the flux of electrons implied by the gamma ray intensity is too low to explain the flux of positrons detected by PAMELA and some other experiments: see the popular article and the research article "Extended gamma-ray sources around pulsars constrain the origin of the positron flux at Earth" in Science.

3. TGD based model for positron excess

Also TGD suggests an explanation for the positron excess (I learned about PAMELA experiment at my birth day and it was excellent birthday present!). TGD allows a hierarchy of scaled up copies of hadron physics labelled by ordinary Mersenne primes Mn= 2n-1 or by Gaussian Mersennes MG,n= (1+i)n-1 . Ordinary hadron physics would correspond to M107.

  1. M89 hadron physics would have mass scale which is 512 times higher than that for ordinary hadron physics: the size scale of these hadrons is by factor 1/512 shorter than that for ordinary hadrons (see this). There are indications for the copies also in other scales: M79 for instance. X boson provides indication for MG,113 pions in nuclear scale. Even copies of hadron physics in biologically important length scales labelled by Gaussian Mersennes MG,k, k= 151,157,163,167 could exist and play key role in living matter (see this). By the way, the appearance of four Gaussian Mersennes in this length scale range is number theoretical mircale.

  2. M89 hadrons can also appear as dark states with Planck constant heff=n×h. For n=512 they would have the size of ordinary hadrons. This could explain the strange anomalies observed at RHIC and later at LHC and hinting about the presence of string like structures in what was expected to be color deconfinement phase transition predicting thermal spectrum should have been observed instead of strong correlations suggesting for quantum criticality characterized by long range correlations and fluctuations for which heff/h=n would be an explanation.

  3. A large number of bumps, whose masses correspond to the masses of ordinary hadron physics scaled up by factor 512, have been reported at LHC. Unfortunately these bumps cannot be explained by SUSY and other main stream models so that they have been forgotten.

TGD based model could be combined with the pulsar model for the positron excess. The collisions between protons from the pulsar accelerated in its magnetic field and the matter surrounding the pulsar would be analogous to those taking place between proton beams at LHC. If the collision energy is high enough (as it seems since gamma rays up to TeV range have been observed) they could produce dark M89 mesons, in particular pions, which then decay to gamma rays and lepton pairs, in particular electron-positron pairs. Similar collisions could occur also in the atmosphere of Earth between ultrahigh energy cosmic rays and nuclei of atmosphere and be responsible for the exotic cosmic ray events like Centauro challenging standard model physics (see this).

4. Other evidence for dark pion like states

There is also other evidence for pion-like states dark in TGD sense.

  1. There is an old observation that gamma ray pairs with energy essential that of electrons rest must come from the center of Milky Way presumably resulting in decays of a particle with mass slightly larger than two times the mass of electron. These particles would also decay to electron positron pairs and the resulting electrons and positrons would be accelerated in the magnetic field of say pulsar to high energies. The rate for the decay to electron positron pairs is quite too slow as compared to the decay rate to gamma pairs. Therefore this mechanism cannot explain positron surplus.

  2. The TGD model for the pion-like states decaying to gamma pairs is as leptopion (see this), which would be a pion-like bound state of color excitations of electrons predicted to be possible in TGD Universe. "Electropion" like states were discovered experimentally in CERN already at seventies and later evidence also for the muopions and taupions has emerged but since they did not fit with standard model, their existence was forgotten. This has been the fate of many other anomalies in particle physics. In nuclear physics there are century old forgotten anomalies re-discovered several times only to be "forgotten" again. The laws of Nature are not discovered nowadays as in good old days: they are decided by the hegemony, which happens to be in power. SUSY, superstring models, and M-theory already disappearing in the sands of time are basic examples of this new political science.

  3. The reason for not accepting the existence of leptopion like states was that in standard model intermediate bosons should decay to them and their decay widths would be larger than their experimental values. However, if leptopions are dark matter in TGD sense having non-standard value of Planck constant heff/h=n, the problem can be circumvented.
See the chapter Recent status of leptopion hypothesis.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Long range magnetic fields at distance of 5 billion light years and death blow to dark matter disks

Last saturday was one of those days when FB is suddenly full of fascinating experimental findings having direct relevance for TGD. Here I comment only two findings related to cosmology and astrophysics.

Long range magnetic fields detected at distance of 5 billion light years

It has been found that long range magnetic fields in microgauss range exists at distance of about 5 billion light years (see this).

The presence of cosmic magnetic fields is one of the mysteries challenging not only the existing cosmological models but even the standard model itself. Due to high temperatures there are no long range currents and there should be no long range magnetic fields in early cosmology and also the mechanism for their emergence later has remained mystery.

The observations, in particular the observations described in the article, are in conflict with the standard model view. The TGD explanation is direct implication of the assumption space-time is surface in M4×CP2. CP2 has non-trivial homology: one can regard it as having 4-D space with Euclidian signature of metric and carrying as topological magnetic monopole flux. No magnetic charge but non-trivial magnetic flux over homologically non-trivial 2-surfaces.

At space-time level this implies the existence of cosmic strings carrying monopole flux and having huge magnetic energy per unit length: they are essentially objects with 2-D M4 projection obeying string dynamics (minimal surface) and having 2-D complex surface as CP2 projection. No currents are needed to create these magnetic fields and they are stable for purely topological reasons. The very early universe would consist of a gas or plasma like state of cosmic strings.

After that the TGD analog of inflationary period took place and the projections M4 of flux tubes became 4-D. Cosmic strings started to thicken and magnetic fields gradually weakened. The prediction that magnetic fields were strongest in the early universe conforms with the observations. Standard model predicts just the opposite and cannot even provide a plausible mechanism for how they could have got stronger.

Other predictions are a detailed model for galactic dark matter associated with thickening cosmic strings. No dark matter halo is predicted and automatically correct prediction for the velocity spectrum of distant stars follows.

See the the chapter Breaking of CP, P, and T in cosmological scales in TGD Universe of "Physics in Many-Sheeted Space-Time ".

Death blow to dark matter disks

The standard view about dark matter is as a halos associated with galaxies and also other astrophysical objects. Nature however seems to be reluctant to behave according to the dictates of halo theorists. The reproduction of the simple flat velocity spectrum for distant stars in galactic plane requires tuning of the parameters characterizing the dark mass distribution in the halo. There is also a small constant density core around the center of galaxy behaving like rigid body rather than a density peak with maximum at the center. Also the attempts to detect various exotic particles proposed to serve as building bricks of dark matter have chronically failed. Quite recently very old galaxies which do not have dark matter have been found.

The latest trouble of the model, one might say a death blow, is that dark matter disks do not seem to exist at all (see this)! I am afraid that this means serious funding problems for the model builders.

The death of one idea is the victory of second one. I have been preaching for almost two decades that galactic dark matter along cosmic string containing galaxies like pearls in necklace: there would be no dark matter halo (see this, this, and this). The model predicts correct velocity profile for distant stars without furher assumptions: the value of string tension determines the value of the velocity. The model solvs a multitude of anomalies of halo model, and leads to a rather detailed model for evolution of galaxies and also provides insights to problems like matter-antimatter asymmetry.

See the the chapter TGD and astrophysics of "Physics in Many-sheeted Space-time".

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Consciousness is more like sequence of flashes than continuous stream

It has become clear that brain consciousness is not a continuous stream but more like a sequence of flashes (see this). This is one of the basic predictions of TGD inspired theory of consciousness based on what I call zero energy ontology (ZEO). One can say that the subself (mental image) is a life-cycle of a conscious entity and that one has sequences of this kind of periods with opposite arrows of time: self dies and reincarnates with opposite arrow of time. Consciousness would have sleep-awake cycles in all time scales. This would give rise to various bio-rhythms. In EEG this would show itself as a decomposition to portions of duration of order .3 seconds.

In ZEO this could be interpreted in terms of a sequence of lifecycles in which time increases in opposite directions: first at (call it) "upper" boundary of CD, which shifts towards geometric future, then at "lower" boundary, which shifts to geometric past, and so on... . Note that the birth at given boundary is only slightly later than the latest death at it so that also our wake-up period at level to which EEG is associated could be repeated births and reincarnations forming an approximate continuum at given boundary of CD. Also wake-up-sleep cycle could be like this. Strobing character is predicted to be a universal feature of consciousness.

In TGD inspired quantum biology the strobing character of consciousness can be related to the nature of metabolism, which does not take place as continuous feed of energy but as doses with some average rate.

An extremely simple example of strobing character corresponds to a recently discovered system of charged plastic balls in plasma of Argon ions exhibing life-like properties for critical values of parameters (see this) (I tend to see this accidental discovery as one of the epoch changing experimental findings). The system makes transitions crystal-like → gas-like → crystal-like →... . This is like breathing or sleep-awake cycle. On basis of standard physics one would expect only single transition and stable state after that and this is what indeed happens outside criticality.

There must be a source of metabolic energy feeding the plastic balls system and located in the system itself. TGD suggests dark nucleosynthesis explaining also "cold fusion" (see this). The metabolic events occur randomly with some average frequency (rate). Crystal-like state has larger value of heff/h= n and emerges, when the system has received a dose of metabolic energy. Gas-like like state with smaller value of n corresponds to the sleep period. In living matter gel-sol phase transition and protein folding would be analogous fundamental processes. I have called protein unfolding period induced by energy feed as "cellular summer" and folding period "cellular winter".

Dark nucleosynthesis would serve as source of metabolic energy during the pre-biotic period when bio-chemical energy was not yet available and solve the hen-egg problem about which came first, metabolism or genes. The sequences of dark protons at magnetic flux tubes would give rise to analogs of DNA, RNA, tRNA, and amino-acids with degeneracies of vertebrate genetic code (see this). Genes are dark nuclei, whose transformations to ordinary nuclei liberate nuclear binding energy as metabolic energy. Hen= egg!

See the chapter Life-like properties observed in a very simple system or the article with the same title.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

A potential missing link in prebiotic chemistry

In the attempts to understand pre-biology the basic challenge is to understand how the needed short RNA, DNA, and amino-acid sequences managed to form. Phosphorylation is known to be crucial for this process and means energization in standard bio-chemistry. Organic phosphate possesses somewhat mysterious high energy phosphate bond, which stores energy and makes possible metabolism: in metabolic ATP with three phosphates transforms to ADP with two phosphates by giving one phosphate with high energy phosphate bond to the acceptor molecule, which is therefore phosphorylated.

In the recent biology phosphorylation of various biomolecules such as DNA, RNA, amino-acid sequences is catalyzed by proteins known as enzymes known as phosphorylases. Kinase is one particular enzyme transferring phosphate from ATP to the acceptor molecule. Proteins consist of amino-acids and would not be present in RNA world, which serves almost as a standard model for the prebiotic period. Ribozymes are catalysts formed from RNA but they catalyze typically only the reversal of phosphorylation.

1. The problem and its possible solution

The phosphorylation of short nucleotide sequences and amino-acid sequences, and also lipids making possible formation of small cell membrane like structures is necessary for the formation of larger structures from their building bricks. As noticed, ribozymes catalyze only dephosphorylation. How RNA was phosphorylated during RNA era or were the amino-acid present all the time?

The popular article with the title Potential 'missing link' in chemistry that led to life on Earth discovered tells about a mechanism allowing phosphorylation during RNA era in absence of enzymes. The discovery is that an organic molecule known as diamidophosphate (DAP) having chemical formula PO2(NH2)2-1 could do the job in presence of water and imidazol. Imidazol has chemical formula C3N2H4 and is a molecule possessing aromatic hetero-cycle consisting of 3 C atoms and 2 N atoms.

Remark: Pyrimidine in turn is aromatic hetero-6-cycle consisting of 4 C atoms and 2 N atoms and having formula C4N2 H4. DNA has as basic building bricks phosphates PO4- having valence bonds with deoxy-ribose molecules (containing 5-rings with 4 C atoms and one O). Each sugar has valence bond with N of nucleoside C, T, A or G. C and T are pyrimidines with single aromatic 6-ring and A and G are purines obtained by fusing imidazol 5-ring and pyrimidine 6-ring to obtain purine double ring. By replacing one OH of de-oxyribose of DNA with H one obtains RNA.

DAP could solve several problems simultaneously: how the short sequences of RNA (later DNA) and amino-acids were formed, and how the predecessors of cell membranes emerged. It is not however clear to me whether this process could have been fast enough or whether the slowness only made the first step painful.

2. How the discovery could relate to TGD inspired quantum biology?

It is interesting to interpret the discovery in TGD framework. The basic question is whether the presence of dark atoms and electrons in bio-molecule distinguish between atomic physics, in-organic chemistry, and organic chemistry. Usually organic chemistry is defined to be chemistry of carbon compounds, typically hydrocarbons. Could it be that the formation of hydrocarbons involves dark variants of proton and electron identified as heff=n× h variants of ordinary proton and electron?

2.1 From atomic physics to chemistry

How could one proceed from atomic physics to atomic physics to chemistry in TGD framework. The basic question is how to understand valence bond: it is not at all clear whether mere Schrödinger equation allows to understand it. Could the emergence of dark electrons allow their delocalization and formation of valence bonds? It has been known for decades that the heating of rare-earth metals leads to a mysterious loss of some valence electrons and the explanation would be the energy provided by heating kicks them to higher energy states by making some valence electrons dark (see this). The explanation would be in terms of dark electron orbitals for valence electrons which have radii scaled up by factor n2 and are analogous to Rydberg states identified as orbitals with large value of principal quantum number and having very large radius.

The dark variants of atoms have binding energy scale reduced by factor 1/n2 so that their formation requires energy feed (perhaps radiation at required frequencies). One or more valence electrons of ordinary atom could be dark so that the size of the orbital is scaled up by factor n2. The valence bond central for chemistry in general and in particular for basic biopolymers could contain dark electrons delocalized because of larger value of n than for the non-valence electrons. Note that one could be n=n0> 1 for ordinary atoms making in principle possible atoms with n< n0 with anomalous large binding energy also for the filled shells as the findings of Randel Mills indeed suggest (see this).

Surprisingly, dark electrons would be essential in ordinary chemistry thought to reduce to standard model physics! The increase of n reduces binding energy scale and requires energy feed. This would allow to understand why anabolism - that is generation of biopolymers from their building blocks by generating valence bonds - requires energy feed and why catabolism - the splitting of biopolymers to their building blocks by splitting the valence bonds liberates energy.

The valence bonds would be classified by the value of n and it is quite possible that in organic chemistry the values of
n are larger than in in-organic chemistry. Could this mean that valence bonds H and C and N and O have higher values in bio-chemistry? Also the valence bonds between O and H in water could have larger value of n.

To sum up, the transition from atomic physics to ordinary chemistry involved generation of dark electrons
associated with valence bonds. The value of n for dark electrons can vary and allow hierarchy of evolutionary steps with increasingly delocalized valence electrons.

2.2 From chemistry to bio-chemistry

What about the step leading to a genuine bio-chemistry involving genetic code? Magnetic body (MB) is the basic aspect of biochemistry according to TGD. Pollack effect leading to the formation of negatively charged regions - exclusion zones (EZs) - would involve generation of dark protons at magnetic flux tubes of MB with electrons left to the EZ - possible as ordinary particles (see this). Also Pollack effect requires feeding of energy, say as irradiation by photons.

DNA is stable against spontaneous hydration only inside cell membrane. This suggests that the EZs of Pollack containing partially dark water molecules satisfying effectively the stoichiometry H3/2O allowed to stabilize DNA. Therefore EZs are excellent candidates for the predecessors of cell.

The TGD inspired proposal is that DNA strand for which each phosphate has negative unit charge is companied by dark analog of DNA consisting of dark protons such that the states of 3-proton units are in one-one correspondence with DNA, RNA, tRNA and amino-acids and the degeneracies of the vertebrate genetic code (number of codons coding for given amino-acid) come out correctly (see this). A more general picture is that ordinary chemistry is kind of shadow for the dynamics of dark matter at magnetic flux tubes doing its best to emulate it. This would explain also why genetic code has also other variants.

It would be the emergence of dark protons with large enough value of n, which would distinguish between ordinary chemistry and bio-chemistry. Water is basic element of life and hydrogen bonding is responsible for the formation of water clusters - certainly one of the key aspects of bio-chemistry. Hydrogen bonds appear between highly electronegative atoms such as O, N, and F (electronegativity is roughly the tendency to attract electrons). What distinguishes hydrogen bond from valence bond is that it is proton rather than electron, which is delocalized. This suggests that the delocalized proton is dark proton at magnetic flux tube connecting the hydrogen bonded molecules.

2.3 The emergence of metabolism

In the proposed framework the first basic aspect of life would be the generation of dark electrons and protons using energy feed and their transfer between molecules and their generation by providing the needed energy.

  1. Metabolism (anabolism) would provide the energy needed to transform ordinary atom (that is electron bound to it) to a dark atom with large value of heff/h=n. This requires energy since the binding energy is proportional to 1/n2 and reduced in the process. This is quite generally true for all dark variants of quantum states. One can say that the increase of the complexity of the system by increasing n characterizing its "IQ" requires metabolic energy (in adelic physics "IQ" has concrete interpretation as cognitive resources). Therefore the first steps of prebiotic life was the emergence of energy feed mechanism making possible the increase of n.

  2. I have considered the possibility that the period of prebiotic life preceding the the emergence of chemical storage of energy used dark nucleosynthesis (see this) as the source of metabolic energy. The recently discovered life-like properties of a very simple system consisting of negatively charged plastic balls in the plasma of Ar+ ions allows to develop rather detailed ideas about this phase of life.
    (see this).

  3. A fundamental question is about the step leading to the chemical storage of metabolic energy to valence bonds with non-standard value of n. Solar radiation could have generated both negatively charged EZs identifiable as possible predecessors of cell membrane and valence bonded molecules storing metabolic energy.

2.4 About bio-catalysis

Without bio-catalysis biochemical reactions leading to the formation of biopolymers and cell membrane would be quite too slow. Here phosphorylation enters the game.

  1. The TGD based model for bio-catalysis relies on the temporary reduction of heff =n×h liberating energy kicking the reactants over potential wall. After this step the catalyst - at least in the ideal situation - receives the energy and the atom becomes dark again.

  2. Acid catalyst gives a proton and base catalyst gives an electron. Most bio-catalysts are acid catalysts
    The TGD based interpretation should rely on the possibility of dark valence electrons and dark protons at flux tubes. Since base catalysts are associated with non-organic chemistry, the identification of the electron given by base catalyst as dark electron looks natural. Acid catalysts would give dark proton.

Bio-catalysts are usually activated by phosphorylation and de-activated by de-phosphorylation but there are exceptions to this rule. This can be understood if the catalyst activates a molecule acting as a switch for a reaction. Catalysts related to phosphorylation are known as phosphotransferases and contain kinases transferring phosphate from ATP to the acceptor molecules.

Phosphatases remove phosphate from the target molecule: they are hydrolases and use water to remove the phosphate and to hydrate the molecule.

2.5 The difference between organic and inorganic phosphates

Phosphate appears as too variants: organic and inorganic.

  1. Organic phosphates bound to biomolecules have charge -1. Some electrons of organic phosphate ion have transformed to valence electrons and are therefore dark. Also some protons - one dark proton per dark electron to not affect the observed charge in short scales - would be dark and at the magnetic body of the organic phosphate. Both dark protons and dark electrons would be present and give rise to somewhat mysterious high energy phosphate bond.

  2. Free phosphate in water environment appears in ionized variants HnPO4n-4 and is regarded as in-organic and have negative charge 4-n. In inorganic phosphate some dark protons and ordinary electrons giving rise to the negative charge have combined to hydrogen atoms. The larger the number of hydrogens is, the higher the level of inorganicity is.

    The fractions of variants of free phosphate in water depend on pH characterizing the density of protons present. Could pH in fact characterize the fraction of dark protons at magnetic flux tubes? Or could it also characterize the fraction of dark hydrogen atoms present. Similar question applies to the counterparts of pH for other biologically important ions.

2.6 About phosphorylation and the interpretation of DAP

At chemical level phosphorylation attaches phosphate ion to the hydroxyl group (R-OH) of the acceptor molecule. At deeper level phosphorylation would give dark electron to the acceptor molecule and dark proton to its MB. Phosphorylation would increase the quantum coherence length: the formation of short RNA, amino-acid sequences and of cell membrane like structures would be a basic example of this.

What about the interpretation of the role of DAP in this framework? DAP has charge -1 as also the phosphate bound to DNA and RNA have (in ATP the outermost phosphate has charge -2). DAP is very similar to the phosphate in DNA and RNA and expected to carry high energy phosphate bond. In TGD framework it would possess both dark valence electrons and dark protons at magnetic flux tubes with only one ordinary electron responsible for the charge of DAP. Due to the properties of phosphatase the phosphorylation would be very simple process at the level of dark electron and proton. Hence DAP and imidazole could make possible the phosphorylation.

2.7 About dephosphorylation and phosphoryl transfer

The scanning of web shows that some sources talk of dephosphorylation and some sources about phosphoryl transfer reactions and it remained unclear to me whether the two terms really have the same meaning. In any case, in TGD framework one can distinguish between these notion. Dephosphorylation could mean either phosphoryl transfer (transfer of phosphate between donor and acceptor molecules) or "dropping" of organic phosphate to water environment and giving it negative additional negative charge (the transfer would be now to water environment) and making it inorganic.

  1. Phosphoryl would transfer removes PO4- group and presumably also the associated dark proton from the target and transfers them to the acceptor molecule and its MB. I have proposed that reconnection of flux tubes transforms the flux tubes entering to the donor molecule to that associated with the acceptor molecule so that dark proton is automatically transferred. In ATP-ADP process the phosphate group and presumably also the dark proton and electron would be transferred to the acceptor molecule from ATP. ADP is dephosphorylated and acceptor phosphorylated.

  2. In "dropping" the outcome would be in-organic phosphate denoted by Pi, which is a mixture of HPO4-2 and H2PO4-1. One interpretation is that 1 or 2 dark protons from magnetic flux tubes have transformed to ordinary protons and combined with electrons to form hydrogen atoms. This operation would reduce the number of dark particle and thus the "evolutionary level" of the system.
Dephosphorylation is known to lead to a decomposition of the donor molecule to smaller structures, indicating the reduction of heff/h and thus of quantum coherence length. In RNA world dephosphorylation would be catalyzed by ribozymes and in some important cases also in the recent biology. Dephosphorylation would reduce quantum coherence length and lead to the decomposition of structures to smaller ones: mRNA splicing is one example of this. Catabolism of nutrients and the decay process of dead organic matter provide further basic examples.

Catabolism of nutrients and the decay process of dead organic matter suggest what happens. In the first preliminary step of catabolism catalysts are involved. At the second step of catabolism inorganic phosphate is formed, which suggests that the number of dark protons is reduced in the process. This conforms with the reduction of the value of heff/h=n.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

More about life-like properties found in very simple system

As I told in the previous posting, I encountered in FB a link to a rather interesting article by physicists working in Emory University. The title of the popular article was " Physicists show how lifeless particles can become 'life-like' by switching behaviors" (see this). The article " Emergent bi-stability and Switching in a Nonequilibrium Crystal by Guram Gogia and Justin Burton is published in PRL and can be found in ArXiv (see this). Justin Burton leads a physics group working at Emory University. Guram Gogia who made the discovery is her student.

The development of TGD inspired model for the finding led to a dramatic progress in the TGD inspired models for biocontrol and prebiotic evolution so that an extended version of the earlier posting is in order.

The physicists working in Emory University have made very interesting discovery. The very simple system studied exhibits what authors call self-organized bi-stability making phase transitions between crystal-like and gas-like phases. The expectation was that only single stable state would appear. Neuron groups can also have collective bi-stability (periodic synchronous firing). Neurons are however themselves bi-stable systems: now the particles are plastic balls and are not bi-stable. One could say that the system exhibits life-like properties. The most remarkable life-like property is metabolism required by the sequence of phase transitions involving dissipation.

Where does the metabolic energy come from? The proposal that stochastic resonance feeds the needed metabolic energy leaves open its source. The resemblance with living cells suggests that the attempt to interpret the findings solely in terms of non-equilibrium thermodynamics might miss something essential - the metabolism.

TGD provides a general model for living systems relying on the notion of magnetic body (MB), hierarchy of Planck constants heff=n× h labelling phases of ordinary matter identifiable as dark matter, and the realization of control and communication signals between MB and biological body using dark photons. Bio-photons would result in the transformation of dark photons to ordinary photons and EEG would rely on dark cyclotron photons and generalized Josephson photons from cell membrane (also bio-photons would relate to them). Bose Einstein condensates of dark variants of biologically important ions or their Cooper pairs are also in a central role. The assumption hgr=heff, where hgr is so called gravitational Planck constant, implies that the energy spectrum of dark cyclotron photons is universal (no dependence on the mass of ion) and naturally in visible and UV range characterizing molecular transition energies.

One can develop a detailed TGD inspired model for the findings leading to an identification of new control tools of MB (MB). Quantum criticality makes it possible for MB can adapt to the biological body (BB) so that it can generated cyclotron frequencies, which correspond to the characteristic frequencies of BB: forced oscillations serve as a control tool of MB. Also the analogs of Alfwen waves identifiable as analogs of string vibrations allow to control the systems at the nodes of the flux tube network.

In the system studied the crystal-like phase corresponds to a connected flux tube network associated having plastic balls as nodes, and gas-like phase to a totally disconnected network with connecting flux tube pairs split into flux loops. That freezing would require energy (going to the magnetic energy of flux tube network in heff increasing phase transition) does not conform with the thermodynamics of classical systems. That superfluid Helium has similar strange feature at low enough temperatures suggests that the system is indeed quantal. Cyclotron Bose-Einstein (BE) condensates of Cooper pairs of Ar+ ions, protons, and electrons are proposed to be relevant. Encouragingly, the ratio of frequencies for horizontal and vertical oscillations frequencies of crystal-like structure is equal to the ratio of cyclotron frequencies for Ar+ and proton.

One of the key challenges is to identify the the prebiotic source of metabolic energy. The sequences of dark protons identifiable as dark nuclei give in TGD framework rise to analogs of DNA, RNA, tRNA, and amino-acids. The model predicts the degeneracies of vertebrate genetic code correctly. In TGD based model for "cold fusion" as dark nucleosynthesis (DNS) serving as a predecessor of ordinary nucleosynthesis dark nuclei transform to ordinary nuclei liberating almost all nuclear binding energy. Dark analogs of DNA, RNA, tRNA, and amino-acids would therefore provide also the sought for prebiotic source of metabolic energy in the system studied: the egg-or-hen problem about whether the genes or metabolism came first, would be resolved.

See the updated article Life-like properties observed in a very simple system or the chapter of "TGD based view about living matter and remote mental interactions" with the same title.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Sunday, November 05, 2017

Life-like properties observed in a very simple system

The physicists working in Emory University have made very interesting discovery decribed in a popular article and in more technical article by the Guran Gogia and Justin Burton.

The very simple system studied exhibits what authors call self-organized bistability making phase transitions between crystal like and liquid like states. The expectation was that only single stable state would appear. Neuron groups can also have collective bistability (periodic synchronous firing). Neurons are however themselves bistable systems: now the particles are plastic balls and are not bistable. One could say that the system exhibits life-like properties. The most remarkable life-like property is metabolism required by the sequence of phase transitions involving dissipation. Where does the metabolic energy come from?

Why the finding is interesting from TGD point of view is that TGD provides a general model for living systems, a general quantal interpretation of metabolism, and suggests also new sources of metabolic energy. The system also has features bringing in mind living cell so that the attempt to interpret the findings solely in terms of non-equilibrium thermodynamics might miss something essential. TGD based model forces to study seriously the possibility that dark nucleosynthesis could be a source of metabolic energy in living matter.

See the updated article Life-like properties observed in a very simple system or the chapter of "TGD based view about living matter and remote mental interactions" with the same title.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Friday, November 03, 2017

Mysteriously disappearing valence electrons of rare Earth metals and hierarchy of Planck constants

The evidence for the hierarchy of Planck constants heff/h=n labelling dark matter as phases with non-standard value of Planck constant is accumulating.

The latest piece of evidence comes from the well-known mystery (not to me until now!) related to rare Earth metals. Some valence electrons of these atoms mystically "disappear" when the atom is heated. This transition is knonw as Lifshitz transition. The popular article Where did those electrons go? Decades-old mystery solved claims that the mystery of disappearing valence electrons is finally resolved. The popular article is inspired by the article Lifshitz transition from valence fluctuations in YbAl3 by Chatterjee et al published in Nature Communications.

Dark matter and hierarchy of Planck constants

The mysterious disappearance of valence electrons brings in mind dark atoms with Planck constant heff=n×h. Dark matter corresponds in TGD Universe to a hierarchy with levels labelled by the value of heff. One prediction is that the binding energy of dark atom is proportional to 1/heff2 and thus behaves like 1/n2 and decreases with n.

n=1 is the first guess for ordinary atoms but just a guess. The claim of Randell Mills is that hydrogen has exotic ground states with larger binding energy. A closer examination suggests n=n0=6 for ordinary states of atoms. The exotic states would have n<6 and therefore higher binding energy scale (see this and this).

This leads to a model of biocatalysis in which reacting molecules contain dark hydrogen atoms with non-standard value of n larger than usual so that their binding energy is lower. When dark atom or electron becomes ordinary binding energy is liberated and can kick molecules over the potential wall otherwise preventing the reaction to occur. After that the energy is returned and the atom becomes dark again. Dark atoms would be catalytic switches. Metabolic energy feed would take care of creating the dark states. In fact, heff/h=n serves as a kind of intelligence quotient for a system in TGD inspired theory of consciousness.

Are the mysteriously dissappearing valence electrons in rare earth metals dark?

Could the heating of the rare earth atoms transform some valence electrons to dark electrons with heff/h=n larger than for ordinary atom? The natural guess is that thermal energy kicks the valence electron to a dark orbital with a smaller binding energy? The prediction is that there should be critical temperatures behaving like Tcr= T0(1- n20/n2). Also transitions between different dark states are possible. These transitions might be also induced by irradiating the atom with photons with the transition energy between different dark states having same quantum numbers.

ORMEs as one manner to end up with dark mattter in TGD sense

I ended up to the discovery of dark matter hierarchy and eventually to adelic physics, where heff/h=n has number theoretic interpretation along several roads starting from anomalous findings. One of these roads began from the claim about the existence of strange form of matter by David Hudson. Hudson associated with these strange materials several names: White Gold, monoatomic elements, and ORMEs (orbitally re-arranged metallic elements). Any colleague without suicidical tendencies would of course refuse to touch anything like White Gold even with a 10 meter long pole but I had nothing to lose anymore.

My question was how to explain these elements if they are actually real. If all valence electrons of this kind of element are dark these element have effectively full electron shells as far as ordinary electrons are considered and behave like noble gases with charge in short scales and do not form molecules. Therefore "monoatomic element" is justified. Of course, only the electrons in the outermost shell could be dark and in this case the element would behave chemically and also look like an atom with smaller atomic number Z. So called Rydberg atoms for which valence electrons are believed to reside at very large orbitals could be actually dark atoms in the proposed sense.

Obviously also ORME is an appropriate term since some valence electrons have re-arranged orbitally. White Gold would be Gold but with dark valence electron. The electron configuration of Gold is [Xe] 4f14 5d10 6s1. There is single unpaired electron with principal quantum number m=6 and this would be dark for White Gold and chemically like Platinum (Pt), which indeed has white color.

Biologically important ions as analogs of ORMEs

In TGD inspired biology the biologically important atoms H+, Li+, Na+, K+, Ca++, Mg++ are assumed to be dark in the proposed sense. But I have not specified darkness in precise sense. Could these ions have dark valence electrons with scaled up Compton length and forming macroscopic quantum phases. For instance, Cooper pairs could become possible and make possible high Tc superconductivity with members of Cooper pair at parallel flux tubes. The earlier proposal that dark hydrogen atoms make possible biocatalysis generalizes: at higher evolutionary levels also the heavier dark atoms behaving like noble gases would become important in bio-catalysis. Interestingly, Rydberg atoms have been proposed to be important for bio-catalysis.

To sum up, if TGD view is correct , an entire spectroscopy of dark atoms and partially dark molecules is waiting to be discovered and irradiation by light with energies corresponding to excitation energies of dark states could be the manner to generate dark atomic matter. Huge progress in quantum biology could also take place. But are colleagues mature enough to check whether TGD view is correct?

See the article Mysteriously disappearing valence electrons of rare Earth metals and hierarchy of Planck constants or the chapter Quantum criticality and dark matter of "Hyperfinite factors, p-adic length scale hypothesis, and dark matter hierarchy".

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

Thursday, November 02, 2017

Dark nucleosynthesis and stellar evolution

The temperature of the solar core is rather near to the scale of dark nuclear binding energy. This co-incidence inspires interesting questions about the dark nucleosynthesis in the stellar evolution.

1. Some questions inspired by a numerical co-incidence

The temperature at solar core is about T=1.5× 107 K corresponding to the thermal energy E= 3T/2= 2.25 keV obtained by a scaling factor 2-11 energy ∼ 5 MeV, which is the binding energy scale for the ordinary nuclei. That this temperature corresponds to the binding energy scale of dark nuclei might not be an accident.

That the temperature in the stellar core is of the same order of magnitude as dark nuclear binding energy is a highly intriguing finding and encourages to ask whether dark nuclear fusion could be the key step in the production of ordinary nuclei and what is the relation of dark nucleosynthesis to ordinary nucleosynthesis.

  1. Could dark nucleosynthesis occur also pre-stellar evolution and thus proceed differently from the usual p-p-cycle involving fusion processes? The resulting ordinary nuclei would undergo only ordinary nuclear reactions and decouple from the dark dynamics. This does not exclude the possibility that the resulting ordinary nuclei form nuclei of nuclei with dark protons: this seems to occur also in nuclear transmutations.

  2. There would be two competing effects. The higher the temperature, the less stable dark nuclei and the longer the dark nuclear strings. At lower temperatures dark nuclei are more stable but transform to ordinary nuclei decoupling from the dark dynamics. The liberated nuclear binding energy however raises the temperature and makes dark nuclei less stable so that the production of ordinary nuclei in this manner would slow down.

    At what stage ordinary nuclear reactions begin to dominate over dark nucleosynthesis? The conservative and plausible looking view is that p-p cycle is indeed at work in stellar cores and has replaced dark nucleosynthesis when dark nuclei became thermally unstable.

    The standard view is that solar temperature makes possible tunnelling through Coulomb wall and thus ordinary nuclear reactions. The temperature is few keVs and surprisingly small as compared to the height of Coulomb wall Ec∼ Z1Z2e2/L, L the size of the nucleus. There are good reasons to believe that this picture is correct. The co-incidence of the two temperatures would make possible the transition from dark nucleosynthesis to ordinary nucleosynthesis.

  3. What about dark nuclear reactions? Could they occur as reconnections of long magnetic flux tubes? For ordinary nuclei reconnections of short flux tubes would take place (recall the view about nuclei as two-sheeted structures). For ordinary nuclear the reactions at energies so low that the phase transition to dark phase (somewhat analogous to the de-confinement phase transition in QCD) is not energetically possible, the reactions would occur in nuclear scale.

  4. An interesting question is whether dark nucleosynthesis could provide a new manner to achieve ordinary nuclear fusion in laboratory. The system would heat itself to the temperatures required by ordinary nuclear fusion as it would do also during the pre-stellar evolution and when nuclear reactor is formed spontaneously (Oklo reactor).

2. Could dark nucleosynthesis affect the views about stellar evolution?

The presence of dark nucleosynthesis could modify the views about star formation, in particular about energy production in protostars and pre-main-sequence stars (PMS) following protostars in stellar evolution.

In protostars and PMSs the temperature is not yet high enough for the burning of hydrogen to 4He, and according to the standard model the energy radiated by the star consists of the gravitational energy liberated during the gravitational contraction. Could dark nucleosynthesis provide a new mechanism of energy production and could this energy be transferred from the protostar/PMS as dark energy along dark magnetic flux tubes?

Can one imagine any empirical evidence for the presence of dark nucleosynthesis in protostars and PMSs?

  1. The energy and matter produced in dark nucleosynthesis could partially leak out along dark magnetic flux tubes and give rise to astrophysical jets. Astrophysical jets indeed accompany protostars and the associated planetary and bipolar nebulae as well as PMSs (T Tauri stars and Herbig-Haro objects). The jets along flux tubes associated with hot spots at which dark nucleosynthesis would take place could provide also a mechanism for the transfer of angular momentum from the protostar/PMS.

  2. Spectroscopic observations of dense cores (protostar) not yet containing stars indicate that contraction occurs but the predicted expansion of the contracting region has not been observed (see this). The energy production by dark nucleosynthesis could increase pressure and slow down and even prevent the expansion of the contracting region.

How dark nucleosynthesis could affect the evolution of protostars and PMSs?
  1. In standard model the formation of accretion disk could be understood in terms of angular momentum conservation: spherical distribution of matter transforms to a planar one does not require large changes for the velocities tangential to the plane. The mechanism for how the matter from accretion disk spirals into star is however poorly understood.

  2. The TGD inspired model for galaxy formation suggests that the core region of the protostar is associated with a highly knotted cosmic string ("pearl in a necklace") forming the dark core of galaxy with constant density of dark matter (see this). The dark matter from the cosmic string would have leaked out from the cosmic string and transformed to ordinary matter already before the annihilation of quarks and antiquarks. The CP, P, and T asymmetries predicted by twistor lift of TGD would predict that there is a net quark (antiquark) number outside (inside) the cosmic string. The locally axisymmetric gravitational potential of the cosmic string would favour disk like rather than spherically symmetric matter distribution as the initial distribution of the baryonic matter formed in the hadronization from the quarks left from the annihilation.

    Quantitative model is needed to see whether dark fusion could contribute significantly to the energy production in protostars and PMSs and affect their evolution. The nuclear binding energy liberated in dark fusion would slow down the gravitational contraction and increase the duration of protostar and PMS phases. In standard model PMS phase is possible for masses varying from 2 to 8 solar masses. Dark nucleosynthesis could increase the upper bound for the mass of PMS from that predicted by the standard model.

See the article Cold fusion again or the chapter of "Hyper-finite factors, p-adic length scale hypothesis, and dark matter hierarchy" with the same title. See also the article Cold fusion, low energy nuclear reactions, or dark nuclear synthesis?.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.