Friday, November 05, 2010

Why positrons are so shy?

There is really dramatic news in New Scientist. Positrium atoms consisting of positron and electron scatter particles almost as if they were lonely electrons! This is called cloaking effect for positron (the article is here). If this is not a bad joke, this is something totally devastating from the point of view of QED and all that we have believed until this day;-).

I have said the words "many-sheeted space-time" and "dark matter hierarchy" so many times that it should be easy to guess that the following arguments will be attempts to understand the cloaking of positron in terms of these notions.

  1. Let us start with the erratic argument since it comes first in mind. If positron and electron correspond to different space-time sheets and if the scattered particles are at the space-time sheet of electron then they do not see positron's Coulombic field at all. The objection is obvious. If positron interacts with the electron with its full electromagnetic charge to form a bound state, the corresponding electric flux at electron's space-time sheet is expected to combine with the electric flux of electron so that positronium would look like neutral particle after all. Does the electric flux of positron return back to the space-time sheet of positronium at some distance larger than the radius of atom? Why should it do this? No obvious answer.

  2. Assume that positron dark but still interacts classically with electron via Coulomb potential. In TGD Universe darkness means that positron has large hbar and Compton size much larger than positronic wormhole throat (actually wormhole contact but this is a minor complication) would have more or less constant wave function in the volume of this larger space-time sheet characterized by zoomed up Compton length of electron. The scattering particle would see pointlike electron plus background charge diffused in a much larger volume. If hbar is large enough, the effect of this constant charge density to the scattering is small and only electron would be seen.

  3. As a matter fact, I have proposed this kind of mechanism to explain how the Coulomb wall which is the basic argument against cold fusion could be overcome by the incoming deuteron nucleus (see this). Some fraction of deuteron nuclei in the palladium target would be dark and have large size just as positron in the above example. It is also possible that only the protons of these nuclei are dark. I have also proposed that dark protons explain the effective chemical formula H1.5O of water in the scattering by neutrons and electrons in attosecond time scale (see this). The connection with cloaked positrons is highly suggestive.

  4. Also one of TGD inspired proposals for the absence of antimatter is that antiparticles reside at different space-time sheets as dark matter and are apparently absent (see this). Also the modified Dirac equation with measurement interaction term suggests that fermions and antifermions reside at different space-time sheets, in particulart that bosons correspond to wormhole contacts (see this). Cloaking positrons (shy as also their discoverer Dirac!) might provide an experimental supports for these ideas.

The recent view about the detailed structure of elementary particles forces to consider the above proposal in more detail.

  1. According to this view all particles are weak string like objects having wormhole contacts at its ends and magnetically charged wormhole throats (four altogether) at the ends of the string like objects with length given by the weak length cale connected by a magnetic flux tube at both space-time sheets. Topological condensation means that these structures in turn are glued to larger space-time sheets and this generates one or more wormhole contacts for which also particle interpretation is highly suggestive and could serve as space-time correlate for interactons described in terms of particle exchanges. As far electrodynamics is considered, the second ends of weak strings containing neutrino pairs are effectively non-existing. In the case of fermions also only the second wormhole throat carrying the fermion number is effectively present so that for practical purposes weak string is only responsible for the massivation of the fermions. In the case of photons both wormhole throats carry fermion number.

  2. An interesting question is whether the formation of bound states of two charged particles at the same space-time sheet could involve magnetic flux tubes connecting magnetically charged wormhole throats associated with the two particles. If so, Kähler magnetic monopoles would be part of even atomic and molecular physics. I have proposed already earlier that gravitational interaction in astrophysical scales involves magnetic flux tubes. These flux tubes would have o interpretation as analogs of say photons responsible for bound state energy. In principle it is indeed possible that the energies of the two wormhole throats are of opposite sign for topological sum contact so that the net energy of the wormhole contact pair responsible for the interaction could be negative.

  3. Also the interaction of positron and electron would be based on topological condensation at the same space-time sheet and the formation of wormhole contacts mediating the interaction. Also now bound states could be glued together by magnetically charged wormhole contacts. In the case of dark positron, the details of the interaction are rather intricate since dark positron would correspond to a multi-sheeted structure analogous to Riemann surface with different sheets identified in terms of the roots of the equation relating generalized velocities defined by the time derivatives of the imbedding space coordinates to corresponding canonical momentum densities.

10 comments:

L. Edgar Otto said...

Matti

Keep up the good work.

I tried to relate things to this article too- but of course our views are not surprised by this sort of new physics as geometrical thinking.

I was surprised when I say your other link that you also had worked in applications to genetics. I thought your remark on the Copenhagen interpretation insightful and right on and certainly scientific!

As I commented to Ulla - you are a great poet too!

ThePeSla

Ulla said...

This would act as a Dirac cone. It is hard to explain in any other way.

The doomsday of M-theory? And they will fall deep. I missed this one, but yesterday was a great TGD-day.
Also the changing Planck constant maybe can be prooved. In fact it has been prooved already since 1986, I found out. From Cern. :)

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v3/8
Alpha clustering in light nuclei is now well established. These states are found at the decay thresholds in nuclei with neutron number equal to the atomic number (N=Z) and having total mass A<30. In many instances, they are associated with chains of α particles forming elongated, exotic shapes. For instance, the so-called Hoyle state in 12C, whose existence is essential for the nucleosynthesis of carbon via the triple-α process, is an example of an α-cluster state. Because these configurations cannot be described by the shell model, so-called cluster models have been developed to characterize these states. In heavier nuclei, cluster states have not been observed. Nevertheless, the concept of α particles existing inside the nucleus even in heavier systems is employed in order to describe α decay...

A cluster of He-atoms? Gravity form the strings (on shell) as a condensate? Is this the proof for a changing hbar too?

Thanks Matti for being there, let's kick the boy in the ass now :) Out into the world with him.

Matti Pitkänen said...

Than you for encouraging comments to both of you. And thanks for Ulla for birth day present. It is really a privilege to be a theoretical physicist with a big vision nowadays. Streams of highly refined information are bombarding you from every direction!

I have been working with quantum biology and quantum theory of consciousness since 1995 or so. For a decade I spend more time with these topics than TGD proper since the situation in theoretical particle physics had become very frustrating for reasons that we all know. After 2005 the focus has been more in the mathematical and interpretational aspects of TGD proper since many new ideas emerged.

Maybe this decade will be a new Golden Age of theoretical physics when all certainties will be challenged. For instance, the finding about positronium may force to modify profoundly the views about matter antimatter asymmetry and CP breaking, which after all belong to basic mysteries of recent day physics. I believe that this kind of experiment could have been done for decades ago. If it were, what would physics look like now? Interesting question.

Ulla said...

It is exactly the biology and the consciousness that is the main proof for TGD :)

How can a theory of physics ever neglect biology, as if living things never exist? That is the most stupid thing they could ever have done.

It is exactly biology that leads to the right theory of physics.

I wish I could do much more than just asking my questions, but maybe the questions do something? I'll look for money also this year for the book :) But most of all I wish you would write. I cannot promise anything, though. Only that I would try to behave as you want.

Ulla said...

The many faces of QCD, Valentine Zakharov about scalar fields. https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B97SuPi0LQhqZTg0ZTkxYzgtZDEwYy00NzZiLWJjZmItMDQ4ZjkwZWJhNTY1&hl=en&pli=1

Field theory seems to fail, dual geometry will do it. Go to the lattice.
Quasi-solution because of the need for fine-tuning. Singular monopole solutions, infinite clusters emerge. Surfaces as defects. Dual gluon fields. It is much about areas.
Condensed strings are to be magnetic , zero magnetism, and topology charged, time-oriented, Higgs mechanism with Goldstone bosons.

Has he studied TGD? :)

Entanlement entropy is alpha entropy, that was new to me. How do the entropy succeed with two different alphas of Graham D.?

There is an entropy problem with BB. Two different entropies?

Leo Vuyk leovuyk@gmail.com said...

In my humble view, elementary particles are hardrock strings pushed around by the oscillating Higgs vacuum lattice.
If the electron and positron string "click together into a neutral positronium, then the cross section of this entity is about the same as one electron.
As a result the scattering effects on argon are not very ,much changed.

Leo Vuyk

Leo Vuyk leovuyk@gmail.com said...

Sorry I have to ADD A PICTURE:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ArDoWzECXSo/RpOCJjlPsTI/AAAAAAAAALg/Vv6ljD45e7M/s1600-h/positronium+ortho-para.jpg

http://bigbang-entanglement.blogspot.com/2007/01/introduction.html

Matti Pitkänen said...

To Leo Vuyk,

I think that the basic challenge is to explain the characteristic angle dependence of the scattering on charged particle.

I am not sure whether a scattering from purely geometric object with vanishing charge - or in improved approach from electric dipole- can reproduce this (as a matter fact Coulomb scattering cross section diverges) and scattering amplitude also in forward direction.

Constant background charge density gives a rather minor correction to the scattering amplitude which is non-vanishing only in forward direction when the size of positron becomes very large.

Vladimir Kalitvianski said...

I did not read the original article but if the positronium velocity is small (well non relativistic), it should scatter as a neutral atom of a much smaller mass. So, maybe it is a natural behavior that was observed.

Matti Pitkänen said...

The point is that the positron is effectively invisible. Scattering is in good approximation from electron only.