X boson makes a comeback!

The Hungarian physics group led by Attila Krasznahorkay, which reported for three years ago of having found new evidence for a new spin 1 boson - X boson - giving rise to 5th force, from an anomaly in the decay of Beryllium nucleus producing electron positron pairs. Now a popular article in New Scientist (see this) tells about a new anomaly in the physics of Helium nuclei found by this group and giving support for a new kind of interaction. Unfortunately the artcle is behind the paywall.

I wrote about the finding an article for 3 years ago. TGD makes quite dramatic prediction: there should be an entire fractal hierarchy of scaled copies of strong and electroweak interacions assignable to p-adic length scales coming as primes near certain powers of two. No fifth force but p-adically scaled variants of known interactions. In fact, a scaling hierarchy of dark variants of basic interactions is predicted so that there should be a lot of new physics to be found.

Also Gaussian primes are allowed as p-adic primes. Mersenne primes and their Gaussian counterparts are in special role and many elementary particles correspond to them. Also hadron physics and electroweak physics correspond to Mersennes. Ordinary hadron physics assignable to M₁₀₇ and there is a considerable evidence for the mesons of its scaled up variant assignable to M₈₉ from LHC forgotten because they could not be explained in terms of sparticles.

In TGD it would not be new force but X boson would be associated with a p-adically scaled down variant of ordinary pion scaled dow to nuclear scale labelled by p-adic length scales assignable Gaussian Mersenne M_G,k, k=113: this predicts the mass of the new particle correctly. It would decay via intermediate state, which is p-adically scaled down variant of Z boson of electroweak physics to e⁺e^- pair. The decays of ordinary pion would also take via p-adically scaled down Z boson and a new view about PCAC hypothesis emerges.

I glue here the earlier blog article about TGD based interpretation published at my blog 2016.

X boson as evidence for nuclear string model

Anomalies seem to be popping up everywhere, also in nuclear physics and I have been busily explaining them in the framework provided by TGD. The latest nuclear physics anomaly that I have encountered was discovered in Hungarian physics laboratory in the decays of the excited state ⁸Be* of an unstable isotope of ⁸Be (4 protons and 4 neutrons) to ground state ⁸Be (see this). For the theoretical interpretation of the finding in terms of fifth force mediated by spin 1 boson see this.

The anomaly manifests itself as a bump in the distribution of e⁺e^- pairs in the transitions ⁸Be*→ ⁸Be at certain angle between electrons. The theoretical interpretation is in terms of a production of spin 1 boson - christened as X - identified as a carrier of fifth force with range about 12 fm, nuclear length scale. The attribute 6.8σ tells that the probably that the finding is statistical fluctuation is about 10^-12: already 5 sigma is regarded as a criterion for discovery.

The assumption about vector boson character looks at first well-motivated: the experimental constraints for the rate to gamma pairs eliminate the interpretation as pseudo-scalar boson whereas spin 1 bosons do not have these decays. In the standard reductionistic spirit it is assumed that X couples to p and n and the coupling is sum for direct couplings to u and d quarks making proton and neutron. The comparison with the experimental constraints forces the coupling to proton to be very small: this is called protophoby. Perhaps it signifies something that many of the exotic particles introduced to explain some bump during last years are assumed to suffer various kinds of phobies. The assumption that X couples directly to quarks and therefore to nucleons is of course well-motivated in standard nuclear physics framework relying on reductionism.

1. Two observations, and the problems created by them

TGD inspired interpretation based on nuclear string model is based on two observations and potential problems created by them.

1. The first observation is that 12 fm range corresponds rather precisely to p-adic length scale for prime p≈ 2^k, k=113 assigned to the space-time sheets of atomic nuclei in TGD framework. The estimate comes from L(k)= 2^(k-151)/2L(151), L(151) ≈ 10 nm. To be precise, this scale is actually the p-adic Compton length of electron if it where characterized by k instead of k₀=127 labelling the largest not super-astrophysical Mersenne prime. k=113 is very special: it labels Gaussian Mersenne prime (1+i)^k-1 and also muonic space-time sheet.
   
   
2. A related observation made few days later is that the p-adic scaling of the ordinary neutral pion mass 135 MeV from k=107 to k=113 by 2^-(113-107)/2=1/8 gives 16.88 MeV! That p-adic length scale hypothesis would predict the mass of X with .7 per cent accuracy is hardly an accident. This would strongly suggest that X boson is k=113 pion.
   
   
3. There is however a problem. The decays to photon pairs producing pion in l=1 partial wave have not been however observed. This creates puzzle. If X is ρ meson like state with spin 1, it should have same mass as pionic X? This is not plausible.
   
   

The pleasant surprise was that the scaled Γ(π→ γγ) turned out to be consistent with the experimental bounds reported in the article! I must admit that it took almost two weeks to realize that the conclusion of the authors based on the limits on gamma pair decay was wrong in TGD framework.

ells about the new anomaly There is however a problem: the estimate for Γ(π, e⁺e^-) obtained by p-adically scaling the model based on decay virtual gamma pair decaying to e⁺e^- pair is by a factor 1/88 too low. One can consider the possibility that the dependence of f_π on p-adic length scale is not the naively expected one but this is not an attractive option. The increase of Planck constant seems to worsen the situation.

The dark variants of weak bosons appear in important role in both cold fusion and TGD inspired model for chiral selection. They are effectively massless below the scaled up Compton scale of weak bosons so that weak interactions become strong. Since pion couples to axial current, the decay to e⁺e^- could proceed via annihilation to Z⁰ boson decay to e⁺e^- pair. The estimate for Γ(π(113), e⁺e^-) is in the middle of allowed range. The success suggests that the couplings of mesons to p-adically scaled down weak bosons could describe semileptonic decays of hadrons and explain the somewhat mysterious origin of CVC and PCAC.

2. Effective action approach

One must construct the effective action for the process using relativistic approach and Poincare invariance.

1. The effective action in the fifth force proposal involves the term giving rise to the decay Z→ ⁸Be+X. ⁸Be*==Z is treated as effective U(1) gauge field Z_αβ = ∂_αZ_β - ∂_βZ_α expressible in terms of vector potential Z_α. The corresponding term in the effective action density is proportional to ε^αβγδ Z_αβ∂_γX ∂_δY. Here X is pseudoscalar meson and ⁸Be==Y scalar. The coupling constant parameter has dimensions of length squared.
   
   
2. In the recent case a reduction to the level of single color bond takes place so that Z_αβ is replaced with ρ_αβ representing spin 1 colored bond and pseudo-scalar X with the colored analog of π(113).
   
   
3. Second term in the effective action describes decays of pseudoscalar X to gamma pair and electron pairs. The scaling of standard model produces gamma+gamma decay rate below the experimental upper limit. The scaling of standard model produces a rate which is by a factor about 1/100 too small. The description in terms of coupling to p-adically scaled down variant of Z boson via axial current leads to a prediction consistent with experimental limits. Also the dark variant of Z boson can be considered as a model but now the rate is by order of magnitude smaller than the lower limit proposed in the article. Also the decay of ordinary pion could proceed by same mechanism.
   
   
   

3. Model for color bonds of nuclear strings

One should also construct a model for color bonds connecting nucleons to nuclear strings.

1. In nuclear string model nuclei are identified as nuclear strings with nucleons connected by color flux tubes, which can be neutral or charged and can have net color so that color confinement would be in question in nuclear length scale. The possibility of charged color flux tubes predicts the existence of exotic nuclei with some neutrons replaced by proton plus negatively charged color flux tube looking like neuron from the point of view of chemistry or some protons replaced with neutron plus positively charged flux tube. Nuclear excitation with energy determined buy the difference of initial and final color bond energies is in question.
   
   
2. The color magnetic flux tubes are analogous to mesons of hadron physics except that they can be colored and are naturally pseudo-scalars in the ground state. These pion like colored flux tube can be excited to a colored state analogous to ρ meson with spin 1 and net color. Color bonds would be rather long flux loops with size scale determined by the mass scale of color bond: 17 MeV gives estimate which as electron Compton length divided by 34 and would correspond to p-adic length scale k=121>113 so that length would be about 2^(121-113)/2=16 times longer than nuclear length scale.
   
   
3. If the color bonds (cb) are indeed colored, the mass ratio m(ρ,cb)/m(π,cb) need not be equal to m(ρ,107)/m(π,107)=5.74. If the ρ and π type closed string states are closed string like objects in the sense as elementary particles are so that there is a closed magnetic monopole flux tube along first sheet going through wormhole contact to another space-time sheet and returning back, the scaling m(ρ/π,107)/m(ρ/π,113)= 8 should hold true.
   
   

4. Model for ⁸Be* → ⁸Be +X

With these ingredients one can construct a model for the decay ⁸Be* → ⁸Be +X.

1. ⁸Be* could correspond to a state for which pionic color(ed) bond is excited to ρ type color(ed) bond. The decay of ⁸Be* → ⁸Be +X would mean a snipping of a color singlet π meson type closed flux tube from the color bond and leaving pion type color bond. The reaction would be analogous to an emission of closed string from open string. m(X)=17 MeV would be the mass of the color-singled closed string emitted equal to m(π,113)=17 MeV. The emitted π would be in l=1 partial wave so that resonant decay to gamma pair would not occur but decay to e⁺e^- pairs is possible just like for the ordinary pion.
   
   
2. Energy conservation suggests the identification of the excitation energy of ⁸Be* as the mass difference of ρ and π type colored bonds (cb): E_ex(⁸Be*)=m(ρ,cb)-m(π,cb)= m(π,113)= 17 MeV in the approximation that X is created at rest. If one has m(ρ,cb)/m(π,cb)= m(ρ)/m(π) - this is not necessary - this gives m(ρ,cb)≈ 20.6 MeV and m(π,cb)≈ 3.5 MeV.
   
   
3. This estimate is based on mass differences and says nothing about nuclear binding energy. If the color bonds carry positive energy, the binding energy should be localizable to the interaction of quarks at the ends of color bonds with nucleons. The model clearly assumes that the dynamics of color bonds separates from the dynamics of nuclei in the case of the anomaly.
   
   
4. The assumption about direct coupling of X to quarks and therefore to nucleons does not makes sense in this framework. Hence protophoby does not hold true in TGD and this is due to the presence of long color bonds in nuclear strings. Also the spin 1 assignment would be wrong.
   
   

To conclude, this new nuclear physics is physics of the magnetic body of nucleus and involves hierarchy of Planck constants in an essential manner, and the proposed solution to the mysteriously puzzle decay rate π(113)→ γγ could turn out to provide a direct experimental proof for the hierarchy of Planck constants. It also suggests a new approach to the leptonic decays of hadrons based on dark or p-adically scaled down variants of weak interactions The proposal for the explanation of the anomaly in charge radius of proton involves physics of the magnetic body of proton (see this). TGD inspired quantum biology is to high degree quantum physics of magnetic body. Maybe the physics of magnetic body differentiates to its own branch of physics someday.

For details see the article X boson as evidence for nuclear string model or the chapter Nuclear string model.