Beta Decay
Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 08:49AM
Doug

One of the most heralded accomplishments of the standard model of physics (SM) is the unification of the electromagnetic and weak nuclear interactions into one electroweak interaction. According to the Wikipedia article on it, the weak nuclear interaction is mediated by the so-called W and Z bosons:

The weak interaction (often called the weak force or sometimes the weak nuclear force) is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons. Its most familiar effect is beta decay (of neutrons in atomic nuclei) and the associated radioactivity. The word “weak” derives from the fact that the field strength is some 1013 times less than that of the strong force.

Yet, the W, Z bosons are only theoretical particles. They are so short-lived that their existence can only be surmised, though this assumption works very well in calculations. According to the same Wikipedia article quoted above, the unification of these theoretical entities, with the observed photon, can be explained through the existence of another theoretical entity, the Higgs boson:

The Standard Model of particle physics describes the electromagnetic interaction and the weak interaction as two different aspects of a single electroweak interaction, the theory of which was developed around 1968 by Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg (see W and Z bosons). They were awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.

According to the electroweak theory, at very high energies, the universe has four identical massless gauge bosons similar to the photon and a scalar Higgs field. However, at low energies the symmetry of the Higgs field is spontaneously broken by the Higgs mechanism. This symmetry breaking produces three massless Goldstone bosons which are “eaten” by three of the photon-like fields, giving them mass. These three fields become the W and Z bosons of the weak interaction, while the fourth field remains massless and is the photon of electromagnetism.

Although this theory has made a number of impressive predictions, including a prediction of the mass of the Z boson before its discovery, the Higgs boson itself has never been observed. Producing Higgs bosons will be a major goal of the Large Hadron Collider being built at CERN.

In the LST community’s SM, the theoretical Higgs field is a universal quantum field, the quantum of which is the Higgs boson. The concept of the Higgs field is, in some ways, similar to the unit space|time progression of the RST. It is the fundamental field of the SM, permeating the universe of matter, just as the unit space|time progression is the fundamental motion of the universe of motion. However, whereas the symmetry of the unit progression is “broken” or “hidden” by the “direction” reversals of the space, or time, aspect of the unit progression, the symmetry of the Higgs field is broken by the Higgs mechanism, which is a complex treatment of the principles of symmetry, as energy conservation laws, leading from one, high-energy, field quantum, to four, low-energy, field quanta.

The thinking is that the four so-called “fundamental” forces are unified at high energy, but, at low energy, the symmetry is broken and the Higgs boson is manifest as four separate bosons, the three W, Z bosons, plus the photon boson. Thus, on this basis, everything is related to a fundamental quantum of energy. In contrast, the RST approach treats matter and energy as discrete units of motion, or the reciprocal relation of the space and time aspects of a universal progression, where, at a given location, the forward progression of one aspect, or the other, is displaced relative to its inverse aspect, creating a discrete unit of matter or energy, at that location.

Consequently, in the RST, everything in the universe is a discrete instance of motion, a combination of these, or a relation between them. Force, by definition, is a property of these motions, combination of these motions, or relation between these motions. It cannot exist independently, or autonomously, as it is currently treated by the LST community, where it is viewed as an autonomous agent of change. However, by the same token, interactions between theoretical entities, resulting in the merging of separate entities into new combinations, or the separation of combinations into constituent entities, must take time, and/or space, to accomplish. Hence, such changes in the configuration of units of motion, or interactions between units, or combinations of units, or relations between units, are themselves units of motion.

A good example of this is the so-called negative beta decay, where the spontaneous decay of a neutron, into a proton, electron and antineutrino, is characterized in the SM as a result of the weak nuclear interaction, which is described as the conversion of a down quark into an up quark, when a W- boson is emitted from the neutron that subsequently decays into an electron and antineutrino. Using the S|T triplets (see previous posts below), we can clearly see that the changes to the involved combinations of quarks and leptons are consistent, but only if the neutrino is present to explain the time and space required for the change to take place.

To see this in the triplets, we need to understand that, from the material sector perspective, the energy equivalent of the SUDR motion (red color) is “lower” than the energy equivalent of the TUDR motion (blue color), just as, from the perspective of negative numbers, -1 is a “lower” value than +1, even though, from the perspective of 0, one isn’t any lower, or higher, than the other is. Thus, as shown in figure 1 below, adding SUDR (red) motion to TUDR (blue) motion, “lowers” it towards unit (green) motion, while adding SUDR motion to unit motion “lowers” it to SUDR motion, just as subtracting weight from one side of a balance will imbalance it, if it is balanced (green), or balance it, if it is unbalanced (all things being equal).

STBetaDecay.png

Figure 1. Triplet Transformations in Beta Decay

In figure 1 above, the three nodes of the down quark are “lower” than the three nodes of the up quark as indicated by the color of the inner terms of the respective S|T units, because red is “lower” than green, and green is “lower” than blue. Therefore, adding red (SUDR) motion to the TUDR motion of the up quark, in the form of the W- boson, lowers the blue nodes of the up, to the green nodes of the down quark, and the green node of the up, to the red node of the down quark, which is to say, the down quark must emit a W- boson to convert into an up quark (again, all things being equal).

Moreover, the all-red motion of the W- boson is identical to the all-red motion of the electron, as far as the three constituent S|T units go, except that the connections of the three nodes are different; that is, the three red magitudes and the three blue magnitudes of the boson triplet are summed into one red and one blue node, or two nodes all together, while the red and blue magnitudes of the fermion are paired together into three nodes, forming the three vertices of the fermion triplet. Thus, the space|time magnitude required to make this change in the configuration, or to convert the motion combination from a two-node boson triplet, to a three-node fermion triplet, is accounted for in the magnitude of the antineutrino triplet.

At least, that is what appears to be the case, but to be sure, we have to make the calculations, which we can do in terms of natural units as follows: Let A, B, and C denote the triplet nodes as before (see previous post below), then, assuming the minimum unit displacements,

Td = Tu + Tw- =
(A + B + C)d = (A + B + C)u + (A + B + C)w- =
{[(1|2)+(2|1)] + [(1|2)+(2|1)] + [(2|4)+(2|1)]}d = {[(1|2)+(4|2)] + [(1|2)+(4|2)] + [(1|2)+(2|1)]}u + {[(2|4)+(2|4)+(2|4)] + [(2|1)+(2|1)+(2|1)]}w- =
[(3|3)+(3|3)+(4|5)]d = [(5|4)+(5|4)+(3|3)]u + [(6|12)+(6|3)]w- =
(10|11)d = (13|11)u + (12|15)w- =
10|11 = 25|26,

which are equal magnitudes displacement-wise, because the one red displacement unit of 10|11 is the same as the one red displacement unit of 25|26. The difference between them is only a difference in scale, or a gauge difference if you will, where

25|26 = 10|11 + 15|15,

the balanced (green) motion of the neutrino and antineutrino. However, just as in the LST gauge theory, 15|15 is indistinguishable from 1|1. Hence, the equation balances, but not without the antineutrino. The only difference between the antineutrino and the neutrino is the assigned dimensions. Where the space|time dimensions of the neutrino are space/time, the dimensions of the antineutrino are time/space, but given the balanced magnitudes of both neutrinos, the difference is academic - in actuality they are one in the same, as far as can be determined at this point, but it’s early in the game.

Some will undoubtedly find this hard to swallow, even though it seems straight forward enough.  However, gauge theory is the basis of the LST SM, and it appears that if one wishes to take issue with these developments, where the same principle is applied to our space|time triplets that is applied to the complex numbers of gauge theory, albeit in a different context, then, to be consistent, the same objection would have to be raised against the SM.

Regardless, it should be clearly recognized that we are not simply replicating features of the LST theories of the SM here.  The similarities are instructive, and illuminating, but the differences are profound indeed.  It is the difference between a universe of matter, existing in the framework of space and time, and a universe of motion, existing as a complex relationship between discrete entities of space and time.  

 

 

 

 

Article originally appeared on LRC (http://www.lrcphysics.com/).
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