Experimental evidence for sterile neutrino?

Many physicists are somewhat disappointed to the results from LHC: the expected discovery of Higgs has been seen as the main achievement of LHC hitherto. Much more was expected. To my opinion there is no reason for disappointment. The exclusion of the standard SUSY at expected energy scale is very far reaching negative result. Also the fact that Higgs mass is too small to be stable without fine tuning is of great theoretical importance. The negative results concerning heavy dark matter candidates are precious guidelines for theoreticians. The non-QCD like behavior in heavy ion collisions and proton-ion collisions is bypassed my mentioning something about AdS/CFT correspondence and non-perturbative QCD effects. I tend to see these effects as direct evidence for M₈₉ hadron physics (see this).

In any case, something interesting has emerged quite recently. Resonaances tells that the recent analysis of X-ray spectrum of galactic clusters claims the presence of monochromatic 3.5 keV photon line. The proposed interpretation is as a decay product of sterile 7 keV neutrino transforming first to a left-handed neutrino and then decaying to photon and neutrino via a loop involving W boson and electron. This is of course only one of the many interpretations. Even the existence of line is highly questionable.

One of the poorly understood aspects of TGD is right-handed neutrino, which is obviously the TGD counterpart of the inert neutrino.

1. The old idea is that covariantly constant right handed neutrino could generate N=2 super-symmetry in TGD Universe. In fact, all modes of induced spinor field would generate super-conformal symmetries but electroweak interactions would break these symmetries for the modes carrying non-vanishing electroweak quantum numbers: they vanish for ν_R. This picture is now well-established at the level of WCW geometry (see this): super-conformal generators are labelled angular momentum and color representations plus two conformal weights: the conformal weight assignable to the light-like radial coordinate of light-cone boundary and the conformal weight assignable to string coordinate. It seems that these conformal weights are independent. The third integer labelling the states would label genuinely Yangian generators: it would tell the poly-locality of the generator with locus defined by partonic 2-surface: generators acting on single partonic 2-surface, 2 partonic 2-surfaces, ...
   
   
2. It would seem that even the SUSY generated by ν_R must be badly broken unless one is able to invent dramatically different interpretation of SUSY. The scale of SUSY breaking and thus the value of the mass of right-handed neutrino remains open also in TGD. In lack of better one could of course argue that the mass scale must be CP₂ mass scale because right-handed neutrino mixes considerably with the left-handed neutrino (and thus becomes massive) only in this scale. But why this argument does not apply also to left handed neutrino which must also mix with the right-handed one!
   
   
3. One can of course criticize the proposed notion of SUSY: wonder whether fermion + extremely weakly interacting ν_R at same wormhole throat (or interior of 3-surface) can behave as single coherent entity as far spin is considered (see this)?
   
   
4. The condition that the modes of induced spinor field have a well-defined electromagnetic charge eigenvalue (see this) requires that they are localized at 2-D string world sheets or partonic 2-surfaces: without this condition classical W boson fields would mix the em charged and neutral modes with each other. Right-handed neutrino is an exception since it has no electroweak couplings. Unless right-handed neutrino is covariantly constant, the modified gamma matrices can however mix the right-handed neutrino with the left handed one and this can induce transformation to charged mode. This does not happen if each modified gamma matrix can be written as a linear combination of either M⁴ or CP₂ gamma matrices and modified Dirac equation is satisfied separately by M⁴ and CP₂ parts of the modified Dirac equation.
   
   
5. Is the localization of the modes other than covariantly constant neutrino to string world sheets a consequence of dynamics or should one assume this as a separate condition? If one wants similar localization in space-time regions of Euclidian signature - for which CP₂ type vacuum extremal is a good representative - one must assume it as a separate condition. In number theoretic formulation string world sheets/partonic 2-surfaces would be commutative/co-commutative sub-manifolds of space-time surfaces which in turn would be associative or co-associative sub-manifolds of imbedding space possessing (hyper-)octonionic tangent space structure. For this option also
   right-handed neutrino would be localized to string world sheets. Right-handed neutrino would be covariantly constant only in 2-D sense.
   

   One can consider the possibility that ν_R is de-localized to the entire 4-D space-time sheet. This would certainly modify the interpretation of SUSY since the number of degrees of freedom would be reduced for ν_R.
   
   

6. Non-covariantly constant right-handed neutrinos could mix with left-handed neutrinos but not with charged leptons if the localization to string world sheets is assumed for modes carrying non-vanishing electroweak quantum numbers. This would make possible the decay of right-handed to neutrino plus photon, and one cannot exclude the possibility that ν_R has mass 7 keV.
   

   Could this imply that particles and their spartners differ by this mass only? Could it be possible that practically unbroken SUSY could be there and we would not have observed it? Could one imagine that sfermions have annihilated leaving only states consisting of fundamental fermions? But shouldn't the total rate for the annihilation of photons to hadrons be two times the observed one? This option does not sound plausible.
   

   What if one assumes that given sparticle is charactrized by the same p-adic prime as corresponding particle but is dark in the sense that it corresponds to non-standard value of Planck constant. In this case sfermions would not appear in the same vertex with fermions and one could escape the most obvious contradictions with experimental facts. This leads to the notion of shadron: shadrons would be (see this) obtained by replacing quarks with dark squarks with nearly identical masses. I have asked whether so called X and Y bosons having no natural place in standard model of hadron could be this kind of creatures.
   
   

The interpretation of 3.5 keV photons as decay products of right-handed neutrinos is of course totally ad hoc. Another TGD inspired interpretation would be as photons resulting from the decays of excited nuclei to their ground state.

1. Nuclear string model (see this) predicts that nuclei are string like objects formed from nucleons connected by color magnetic flux tubes having quark and antiquark at their ends. These flux tubes are long and define the "magnetic body" of nucleus. Quark and antiquark have opposite em charges for ordinary nuclei. When they have different charges one obtains exotic state: this predicts entire spectrum of exotic nuclei for which statistic is different from what proton and neutron numbers deduced from em charge and atomic weight would suggest. Exotic nuclei and large values of Planck constant could make also possible cold fusion
   (see this).
   
   
2. What the mass difference between these states is, is not of course obvious. There is however an experimental finding (see Analysis of Gamma Radiation from a Radon Source: Indications of a Solar Influence) that nuclear decay rates oscillate with a period of year and the rates correlate with the distance from Sun. A possible explanation is that the gamma rays from Sun in few keV range excite the exotic nuclear states with different decay rate so that the average decay rate oscillates. Note that nuclear excitation energies in keV range would also make possible interaction of nuclei with atoms and molecules (see this).
   
   
3. This allows to consider the possibility that the decays of exotic nuclei in galactic clusters generates 3.5 keV photons. The obvious question is why the spectrum would be concentrated at 3.5 keV in this case (second question is whether the energy is really concentrated at 3.5 keV: a lot of theory is involved with the analysis of the experiments). Do the energies of excited states depend on the color bond only so that they would be essentially same for all nuclei? Or does single excitation dominate in the spectrum? Or is this due to the fact that the thermal radiation leaking from the core of stars excites predominantly single state? Could E=3.5 keV correspond to the maximum intensity for thermal radiation in stellar core? If so, the temperature of the exciting radiation would be about T≈ E/3≈ 1.2× 10⁷ K. This in the temperature around which formation of Helium by nuclear fusion has begun: the temperature at solar core is around 1.57× 10⁷ K.
   
   

For background see the chapter SUSY in TGD Universe of "p-Adic Length Scale Hypothesis".

Class field theory and TGD: does TGD reduce to number theory?

The intriguing general result of class field theory) -something extremely abstract for physicist's brain - is that the the maximal Abelian extension for rationals is homomorphic with the multiplicative group of ideles. This correspondence plays a key role in Langlands correspondence (see this,this, this, and this).

Does this mean that it is not absolutely necessary to introduce p-adic numbers? This is actually not so. The Galois group of the maximal abelian extension is rather complex objects (absolute Galois group, AGG, defines as the Galois group of algebraic numbers is even more complex!). The ring Z of adeles defining the group of ideles as its invertible elements homeomorphic to the Galois group of maximal Abelian extension is profinite group. This means that it is totally disconnected space as also p-adic integers and numbers are. What is intriguing that p-dic integers are however a continuous structure in the sense that differential calculus is possible. A concrete example is provided by 2-adic units consisting of bit sequences which can have literally infinite non-vanishing bits. This space is formally discrete but one can construct differential calculus since the situation is not democratic. The higher the pinary digit in the expansion is, the less significant it is, and p-adic norm approaching to zero expresses the reduction of the insignificance.

1. Could TGD based physics reduce to a representation theory for the Galois groups of quaternions and octonions?

Number theoretical vision about TGD raises questions about whether adeles and ideles could be helpful in the formulation of TGD. I have already earlier considered the idea that quantum TGD could reduce to a representation theory of appropriate Galois groups. I proceed to make questions.

1. Could real physics and various p-adic physics on one hand, and number theoretic physics based on maximal Abelian extension of rational octonions and quaternions on one hand, define equivalent formulations of physics?
   
   
2. Besides various p-adic physics all classical number fields (reals, complex numbers, quaternions, and octonions) are central in the number theoretical vision about TGD. The technical problem is that p-adic quaternions and octonions exist only as a ring unless one poses some additional conditions. Is it possible to pose such conditions so that one could define what might be called quaternionic and octonionic adeles and ideles?
   

   It will be found that this is the case: p-adic quaternions/octonions would be products of rational quaternions/octonions with a p-adic unit. This definition applies also to algebraic extensions of rationals and makes it possible to define the notion of derivative for corresponding adeles. Furthermore, the rational quaternions define non-commutative automorphisms of quaternions and rational octonions at least formally define a non-associative analog of group of octonionic automorphisms (see this).
   
   

3. I have already earlier considered the idea about Galois group as the ultimate symmetry group of physics. The representations of Galois group of maximal Abelian extension (or even that for algebraic numbers) would define the quantum states. The representation space could be group algebra of the Galois group and in Abelian case equivalently the group algebra of ideles or adeles. One would have wave functions in the space of ideles.
   

   The Galois group of maximal Abelian extension would be the Cartan subgroup of the absolute Galois group of algebraic numbers associated with given extension of rationals and it would be natural to classify the quantum states by the corresponding quantum numbers (number theoretic observables).
   

   If octonionic and quaternionic (associative) adeles make sense, the associativity condition would reduce the analogs of wave functions to those at 4-dimensional associative sub-manifolds of octonionic adeles identifable as space-time surfaces so that also space-time physics in various number fields would result as representations of Galois group in the maximal Abelian Galois group of rational octonions/quaternions. TGD would reduce to classical number theory!
   
   

4. Absolute Galois group is the Galois group of the maximal algebraic extension and as such a poorly defined concept. One can however consider the hierarchy of all finite-dimensional algebraic extensions (including non-Abelian ones) and maximal Abelian extensions associated with these and obtain in this manner a hierarchy of physics defined as representations of these Galois groups homomorphic with the corresponding idele groups.
   
   
5. In this approach the symmetries of the theory would have automatically adelic representations and one might hope about connection with Langlands program.
   

2. Adelic variant of space-time dynamics and spinorial dynamics?

As an innocent novice I can continue to pose stupid questions. Now about adelic variant of the space-time dynamics based on the generalization of Kähler action discussed already earlier but without mentioning adeles (see this).

1. Could one think that adeles or ideles could extend reals in the formulation of the theory: note that reals are included as Cartesian factor to adeles. Could one speak about adelic or even idelic space-time surfaces endowed with adelic or idelic coordinates? Could one formulate variational principle in terms of adeles so that exponent of action would be product of actions exponents associated with various factors with Neper number replaced by p for Z_p. The minimal interpretation would be that in adelic picture one collects under the same umbrella real physics and various p-adic physics.
   
   
2. Number theoretic vision suggests that 4:th/8:th Cartesian powers of adeles have interpretation as adelic variants of quaternions/ octonions. If so, one can ask whether adelic quaternions and octonions could have some number theretical meaning. Note that adelic quaternions and octonions are not number fields without additional assumptions since the moduli squared for a p-adic analog of quaternion and octonion can vanish so that the inverse fails to exist.
   

   If one can pose a condition guaranteing the existence of inverse, one could define the multiplicative group of ideles for quaternions. For octonions one would obtain non-associative analog of the multiplicative group. If this kind of structures exist then four-dimensional associative/co-associative sub-manifolds in the space of non-associative ideles define associative/co-associative ideles and one would end up with ideles formed by associative and
   co-associative space-time surfaces.
   
   

3. What about equations for space-time surfaces. Do field equations reduce to separate field equations for each factor? Can one pose as an additional condition the constraint that p-adic surfaces provide in some sense cognitive representations of real space-time surfaces: this idea is formulated more precisely in terms of p-adic manifold concept (see this). Or is this correspondence an outcome of evolution?
   

   Physical intuition would suggest that in most p-adic factors space-time surface corresponds to a point, or at least to a vacuum extremal. One can consider also the possibility that same algebraic equation describes the surface in various factors of the adele. Could this hold true in the intersection of real and p-adic worlds for which rationals appear in the polynomials defining the preferred extremals.
   
   

4. To define field equations one must have the notion of derivative. Derivative is an operation involving division and can be tricky since adeles are not number field. If one can guarantee that the p-adic variants of octonions and quaternions are number fields, there are good hopes about well-defined derivative. Derivative as limiting value df/dx= lim ( f(x+dx)-f(x))/dx for a function decomposing to Cartesian product of real function f(x) and p-adic valued functions f_p(x_p) would require that f_p(x) is non-constant only for a finite number of primes: this is in accordance with the physical picture that only finite number of p-adic primes are active and define "cognitive representations" of real space-time surface. The second condition is that dx is proportional to product dx × ∏ dx_p of differentials dx and dx_p, which are rational numbers. dx goes to xero as a real number but not p-adically for any of the primes involved. dx_p in turn goes to zero p-adically only for Q_p.
   
   
5. The idea about rationals as points commont to all number fields is central in number theoretical vision. This vision is realized for adeles in the minimal sense that the action of rationals is well-defined in all Cartesian factors of the adeles. Number theoretical vision allows also to talk about common rational points of real and various p-adic space-time surfaces in preferred coordinate choices made possible by symmetries of the imbedding space, and one ends up to the vision about life as something residing in the intersection of real and p-adic number fields. It is not clear whether and how adeles could allow to formulate this idea.
   
   
6. For adelic variants of imbedding space spinors Cartesian product of real and p-adc variants of imbedding spaces is mapped to their tensor product. This gives justification for the physical vision that various p-adic physics appear as tensor factors. Does this mean that the generalized induced spinors are infinite tensor products of real and various p-adic spinors and Clifford algebra generated by induced gamma matrices is obtained by tensor product construction? Does the generalization of massless Dirac equation reduce to a sum of d'Alembertians for the factors? Does each of them annihilate the appropriate spinor? If only finite number of Cartesian factors corresponds to a space-time surface which is not vacuum extremal vanishing induced Kähler form, Kähler Dirac equation is non-trivial only in finite number of adelic factors.
   

3. Objections

The basic idea is that apporopriately defined invertible quaternionic/octonionic adeles can be regarded as elements of Galois group assignable to quaternions/octonions. The best manner to proceed is to invent objections against this idea.

1. The first objection is that p-adic quaternions and octonions do not make sense since p-adic variants of quaternions and octonions do not exist in general. The reason is that the p-adic norm squared ∑ x_i² for p-adic variant of quaternion, octonion, or even complex number can vanish so that its inverse does not exist.
   
   
2. Second objection is that automorphisms of the ring of quaternions (octonions) in the maximal Abelian extension are products of transformations of the subgroup of SO(3) (G₂) represented by matrices with elements in the extension and in the Galois group of the extension itself. Ideles separate out as 1-dimensional Cartesian factor from this group so that one does not obtain 4-field (8-fold) Cartesian power of this Galois group.
   

If the p-adic variants of quaternions/octonions are be rational quaternions/octonions multiplied by p-adic number, these objections can be circumvented.

1. This condition indeed allows to construct the inverse of p-adic quaternion/octonion as a product of inverses for rational quaternion/octonion and p-adic number! The reason is that the solutions to ∑ x_i²=0 involve always p-adic numbers with an infinite number of pinary digits - at least one and the identification excludes this possibility.
   
   
2. This restriction would give a rather precise content for the idea of rational physics since all p-adic space-time surfaces would have a rational backbone in well-defined sense.
   
   
3. One can interpret also the quaternionicity/octonionicity in terms of Galois group. The 7-dimensional non-associative counterparts for octonionic automorphisms act as transformations x→ gxg^-1. Therefore octonions represent this group like structure and the p-adic octonions would have interpretation as combination of octonionic automorphisms with those of rationals.
   

   Adelic variants of of octonions would represent a generalization of these transformations so that they would act in all number fields. Quaternionic 4-surfaces would define associative local sub-groups of this group-like structure. Thus a generalization of symmetry concept reducing for solutions of field equations to the standard one would allow to realize the vision about the reduction of physics to number theory.
   
   

For background see the chapter About Absolute Galois group of "TGD as Generalized Number Theory".

Why TGD?

Hamed kindly reminded me about article "Why TGD?" that I wrote
recently: why not mention it in blog article.

The article is as an attempt to provide a popular summary about TGD, its motivations, and basic implications. This is of course mission impossible as such since TGD is something at the top of centuries of evolution which has led from Newton to standard model. This means that there is a background of highly refined conceptual thinking about Universe so that even the best computer graphics and animations do not help much. One can still try - at least to create some inspiring impressions. The artice approaches the challenge by answering the most frequently asked questions. Why TGD? How TGD could help to solve the problems of recent day theoretical physics? What are the basic principles of TGD? What are the basic guidelines in the construction of TGD?

These are examples of this kind of questions which I try to answer in the article using the only language that I can talk. This language is a dialect used by elementary particle physicists, quantum field theorists, and other people applying modern physics. At the level of practice involves technically heavy mathematics but since it relies on very beautiful and simple basic concepts, one can do with a minimum of formulas, and reader can always to to Wikipedia if it seems that more details are needed. I hope that reader could catch the basic idea: technical details are not important, it is principles and concepts which really matter. And I almost forgot: problems! TGD itself and almost every new idea in the development of TGD has been inspired by a problem.

Why TGD?

The first question is "Why TGD?". The attempt to answer this question requires overall view about the recent state of theoretical physics.

Obviously standard physics plagued by some problems. These problems are deeply rooted in basic philosophical - one might even say ideological - assumptions which boil down to -isms like reductionism, materialism, determinism, and locality.

Thermodynamics, special relativity, and general relativity involve also postulates, which can be questioned. In thermodynamics second law in its recent form and the assumption about fixed arrow of thermodynamical time can be questions since it is hard to understand biological evolution in this framework. Clearly, the relationship between the geometric time of physics and experienced time is poorly understood. In general relativity the beautiful symmetries of special relativity are in principle lost and by Noether's theorem this means also the
loss of classical conservation laws, even the definitions of energy and momentum are in principle lost. In quantum physics the basic problem is that the non-determinism of quantum measurement theory is in conflict with the determinism of Schrödinger equation.

Standard model is believed to summarize the recent understanding of physics. The attempts to extrapolate physics beyond standard model are based on naive length scale reductionism and have products Grand Unified Theories (GUTs), supersymmetric gauge theories (SUSYs). The attempts to include gravitation under same
theoretical umbrella with electroweak and strong interactions has led to super-string models and M-theory. These programs have not been successful, and the recent dead end culminating in the landscape problem of super string theories and M-theory could have its origins in the basic ontological assumptions about the nature of space-time and quantum.

How could TGD help?

The second question is "Could TGD provide a way out of the dead alley and how?". The claim is that is the case. The new view about space-time as 4-D surface in certain fixed 8-D space-time is the starting point motivated by the energy problem of general relativity and means in certain sense fusion of the basic ideas of special and general relativities.

This basic idea has gradually led to several other ideas. Consider only the identification of dark matter as phases
of ordinary matter characterized by non-standard value of Planck constant, extension of physics by including physics in p-adic number fields and assumed to describe correlates of cognition and intentionality, and zero energy ontology (ZEO) in which quantum states are identified as counterparts of physical events. These new elements generalize considerably the view about space-time and quantum and give good hopes about possibility to understand living systems and consciousness in the framework of physics.

Two basic visions about TGD

There are two basic visions about TGD as a mathematical theory. The first vision is a generalization of Einstein's geometrization program from space-time level to the level of "world of classical worlds" identified as space of 4-surfaces. There are good reasons to expect that the mere mathematical existence of this infinite-dimensional geometry fixes it highly uniquely and therefore also physics. This hope inspired also string model enthusiasts before the landscape problem forcing to give up hopes about predictability.

Second vision corresponds to a vision about TGD as a generalized number theory having three separate threads.

1. The inspiration for the first thread came from the need to fuse various p-adic physics and real physics to single coherent whole in terms of principle that might be called number theoretical universality.
   
   
2. Second thread was based on the observation that classical number fields (reals, complex numbers, quaternions, and octonions) have dimensions which correspond to those appearing in TGD. This led to the vision that basic laws of both classical and quantum physics could reduce to the requirements of associativity and commutativity.
   
   
3. Third thread emerged from the observation that the notion of prime (and integer, rational, and algebraic number) can be generalized so that infinite primes are possible. One ends up to a construction principle allowing to construct infinite hierarchy of infinite primes using the primes of the previous level as building bricks at new level. Rather surprisingly, this procedure is structurally identical with a repeated second quantization of supersymmetric arithmetic quantum field theory for which elementary bosons and fermions are labelled by primes. Besides free many-particle states also the analogs of bound states are obtained and this means the situation really fascinating since it raises the hope that the really hard part of quantum field theories -
   understanding of bound states - could have number theoretical solution.
   
   

It is not yet clear whether both great visions are needed or whether either of them is in principle enough. In any case their combination has provided a lot of insights about what quantum TGD could be.

Guidelines in the construction of TGD

The construction of new physical theory is slow and painful task but leads gradually to an identification of basic guiding principles helping to make quicker progress. There are many such guiding principles.

• "Physics is uniquely determined by the existence of WCW" is is a conjecture but motivates highly interesting questions. For instance: "Why M⁴× CP₂ a unique choice for the imbedding space?", "Why space-time dimension must be 4?", etc...
  
  
• Number theoretical Universality is a guiding principle in attempts to realize number theoretical vision, in particular the fusion of real physics and various p-adic physics to single structure.
  
  
• The construction of physical theories is nowadays to a high degree guesses about the symmetries of the theory and deduction of consequences. The very notion of symmetry has been generalized in this process. Super-conformal symmetries play even more powerful role in TGD than in super-string models and gigantic symmetries of WCW in fact guarantee its existence.
  
  
• Quantum classical correspondence is of special importance in TGD. The reason is that where classical theory is not anymore an approximation but in well-defined sense exact part of quantum theory.
  

There are also more technical guidelines.

• Strong form of General Coordinate invariance (GCI) is very strong assumption. Already GCI leads to the assumption that Kähler function is Kähler action for a preferred extremal defining the counterpart of Bohr orbit. Even in a form allowing the failure of strict determinism this assumption is very powerful. Strong form of general coordinate invariance requires that the light-like 3-surfaces representing partonic orbits and space-like 3-surfaces at the ends of causal diamonds are physically equivalent. This implies effective 2-dimensionality: the intersections of these two kinds of 3-surfaces and 4-D tangent space data at them should code for quantum states.
  
  
• Quantum criticality states that Universe is analogous to a critical system meaning that it has maximal structural richness. One could also say that Universe is at the boundary line between chaos and order. The original motivation was that quantum criticality fixes the basic coupling constant dictating quantum dynamics essentially uniquely.
  
  
• The notion of finite measurement resolution has also become an important guide-line. Usually this notion is regarded as ugly duckling of theoretical physics which must be tolerated but the mathematics of von Neumann algebras seems to raise its status to that of beautiful swan.
  
  
• What I have used to call weak form of electric-magnetic duality is a TGD version of electric-magnetic duality discovered by Olive and Montonen. It makes it possible to realize strong form of holography implied actually by strong for of General Coordinate Invariance. Weak form of electric magnetic duality in turn encourages the conjecture that TGD reduces to almost topological QFT. This would mean enormous mathematical simplification.
  
  
• TGD leads to a realization of counterparts of Feynman diagrams at the level of space-time geometry and topology: I talk about generalized Feynman diagrams. The highly non-trivial challenge is to give them precise mathematical content. Twistor revolution has made possible a considerable progress in this respect and led to a vision about twistor Grassmannian description of stringy variants of Feynman diagrams. In TGD context string like objects are not something emerging in Planck length scale but already in scales of elementary particle physics. The irony is that although TGD is not string theory, string like objects and genuine string world sheets emerge naturally from TGD in all length scales. Even TGD view about nuclear physics predicts string like objects.

For details see the new article Why TGD?.