Dear Daniel.

How much credibility can we grant to theoretical physics?

It looks like you prefer to rely on the conventional theoretical physics, however the image that theorists are giving is not that much upright. Let me illustrate this.

In December 2015 an excess at 3.6 local sigmas was observed at 750 GeV in the difotonic channel (H → γγ), by pure chance, both in ATLAS and CMS (LCMF, Dec 15, 2015). This led to the publication of more than 600 theoretical articles in arXiv about the process (LCMF, Mar 22, 2016). Months later the excess disappeared (LCMF, 05 Aug 2016).

So, in a few months 600 theoretical articles were written justifying a fake event. What is therefore the credibility of mathematical issues in view that they can manage to justify an inexistent upshot?

Theorists should be more careful in “not throwing so many stones against the roof of their house”. Furthermore, “Publish or perish” may not be so wise after all and publishing compulsivity may have the opposite effect.

It either exites an electron to a higher energy level,

use delta E= h nu

or if there is a net dipole moment, excites some lattice vibration,

or molecular vibration. For lattice vibration usually in the far infrared.

for electronic transitions in optical or

ultraviolet and molecules the infrared.

Either way photon energy goes into something else.

Maybe as polarons can continie going. If the sample is not very thick

it can come out with diminished amplitude.(fewer photons)

Some portion is reflected.

In §6.3.2 of "Electromagnetism explained by the theory of Informatons-2 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305774508_ELECTROMAGNETISM_EXPLAINED_BY_THE_THEORY_OF_INFORMATONS-2) I develop the idea that a photon is a combination of a carrier (called an "informaton") and an energy packet h.f.

In that context the absorption of a photon means that the energy packet goes into somemthing else, but the carrier (the "informaton) put his way further with the speed of light.

Article ELECTROMAGNETISM EXPLAINED BY THE THEORY OF INFORMATONS-2

both you guys are ghost specialists. Physics is about the measurable stuff.

Dear Antoine,

I can see some likeness with your standpoint but I see some difficulties relative to the terms you use. You say: “I developed the idea that a photon is a combination of a carrier (called an "informaton") and an energy packet h f”. The term information is quite vague, you should define its content.

I think it would be clearer to talk about the structure or corporeity of the photon on one side and on the other side about its energy content.

We ask participants to please make an effort to center on the question asked. We are not interested in what happens to the energy transferred to the absorber, which is already well known, but we are exclusively interested in debating about being the photon corporeity preserved or not once it has transferred all its energy.

We recommend reading at first the paper: Space, this great unknown, before participating in the debate. Please, restrict comments on the issue proposed without “beating around the bush”, in order avoiding the debate to end up being chaotic. The debate should converge towards consensus on a solution and should not diverge in poorly related comments.  

Participants could just answer YES or NO about thinking that photons die out upon absorption or do not.

Those answering NO may not justify it since it is the current common belief, unless they have a very incisive justification.

We are mostly interested in the argumentation of those answering YES in order to learn about and analyse their justifications.

We insist that we are only interested in your opinion about photons preserving their corporeity, or not preserving it, in loosing their energy in being absorbed.

Juan Weisz,

I think it would be a good exercise not being so derogative. The question is: Would physicists manage someday to find a way of detecting energyless particles. Your answer is not much constructive.

Sorry, did not mean to be ofensive, but I think that from my

answer you can conclude that I think not.

Some times things with tiny interactions as those of neurtinos have taken a long time to find, but you have to have a reason

to suspect something to exist. If it is quanta from a field, that field should have energy.

In some situations the mechanisms I mentioned are not present,

so the material is almost transparent, as glass, or the infrared for

semiconductors. In those situations there is a gap in the electron spectrum.

Georges,

Can you give me a better idea of the experiment, or empirical

base that gives this 1.02 MeV

I never hear of it before.

Saludos, juan

OK, you may be refering to the electron positon pair formation

However that just means that the required threshold energy for this reation

has been achieved, nothing to do with the argument you are trying to make.

In that case the photon really has this high energy.

By the same token the low energy photons also dissapear in reactions., proceses

I mention.

Juan,

It looks like you missed the point. Any photon, in order to loose its existence as such must absorb at least 1.02 MeV to be dissociated and stop existing as a photon. But in its absorption by a material it just loose the energy related to its wavelength without loosing its structural bonding energy of 1.02 MeV, energy that should be brought by the absorber in order to get dissociated. Since this does not happen (no pair of e- e+ is created through its absorption) one must assume that the photon has not been dissociated and therefore endures in an energyless state.

Dear Georges,

"The term information is quite vague, you should define its content."

In §1.2  and  §1.3 of the priviously cited article the content of the term "information" is described and mathematically defined.

"I think it would be clearer to talk about the structure or corporeity of the photon on one side and on the other side about its energy content."

Indeed, the term "combination" can better be replaced by "structure consisted of a carrier and an energy packet".

Georges ~

When a photon is absorbed by an electon it gives up all its energy to the electron. A massless particle with no energy would have no momentum either. I can’t get my mind around the idea that something with no momentum and no energy can somehow “exist”. Exist in what sense?

What is this “structural bonding energy” of a photon that you speak of? I’ve never encountered that concept. According to my understanding, a photon has no structure. There is a change of energy, momentum and spin when a charged particle absorbes or emits electromagnetic radiation. The ”photon” is that change of energy, momentum and spin. It is nothing more.

Recall : the transactional definition of a photon :

A photon is a successful transaction between three partners: an emitter, an absorber, and the space or optical devices between them. This transaction transfers by electromagnetic means, a quantum of looping h, and an energy-momentum that depends on the respective frames of the emitter and the absorber.

No fuss...

To all participants:

Please, read first the recommendations at the very beginning of the debate

Please also read the short answer I gave to Juan.

In order to preserve the debate to end up being chaotic, I will not answer to those that manifestly have not previously read the paper: Space, this great unknown. I am try ing not having to repeat what has been already expressed.

After that I expect incisive comments, dealing strictly with the present topic, and please avoid beating around the bush. So, please answer yes or no about the question in debate with insightful contributions. Those not interested in this topic should go into some other debate. I will not let the debate evolving into a mess.

Our aim is to come up with a competent on line research group. So, let us express our concern in others terms. Suppose you are working in a research group and a very specific research must be carried out. If you just fool around without contributing efficiently to the issue, your employer may just fire you.

I do ask for intellectual discipline. I have been a professor. Just, recall this: When you were younger and had to answer to the questions of an exam you could not go off topic under penalty of not passing it. Apply it to the topic into debate.

Also, avoid to just express the official standpoint. It is assumed that participants do know it. The goal is to try improving it or to go beyond it.

Please do not hesitate to write down your own definition of "photon".

I suggest another one, more basic : "The smallest transferable part of an electromagnetic radiation".

Dear Eric, 

I have already valued your elsewhere clever comments on the CMB.

The “structural bonding energy” of a photon that I speak of is simply the energy that must be transferred to it to dissociate into a pair e- e+. Its structure can fruitfully be seen as defined by a gyratory-oscillatory electric dipole of  2.82 10-15 m. This viewpoint provides its spin, its oscillatory frequency and its structural energy.

Any photon, in order to loose its existence as such must absorb at least 1.02 MeV to be dissociated and stop existing as a photon. But in its absorption by a material it just loose the energy related to its wavelength without loosing its structural bonding energy of 1.02 MeV, energy that should be brought by the absorber in order to get dissociated. Since this does not happen (no pair of e- e+ is created through its absorption) one must assume that the photon has not been dissociated and therefore endures in an energyless state.

Dear Jacques,

OK. This is right but unfortunately it does not help much in finding out its structure. One must comes up with a structural model and after while check if it survives experimental check up.

Dear Georges,

"So, if photons do survive after being absorbed they thus became ghost photons, i.e. invisible. Evidently this is problematic. But let us not dismiss so fast. "

photons are a form of holistic free energy, when detected they are bounded energy, the ones emitted are never the same as the ones absorbed in a real situation, except maybe in the case of resonance (Mossbauer included) provided that the spin is preserved, which is very difficult to occur.

Even if their energy and momentum survives,  when absorbed they basically disappear into something else....in this case I do not need ghosts...

Reading Lev Okun, it is evident the properties of photons which are massless and are not subjected to gravitation. Photons cannot be compared to  any particles while travelling in gravitational fields for example except maybe neutrinos.

What is really peculiar is the Quanglement, which creates twin photons during emission. In that case I could agree to talk about ghosts, since they are magically connected together no matter what distance separates them.

Dear Georges ~

OK, I get it. Thanks for the clarification.

The gyratory-oscillatory behaviour would give the photon a tiny effective "rest" mass. I still can't quite see why the energy associated with that would not be transferred to any charged particle that the photon strikes − along with everything else the photon carries. It can't see where else it could go...

What you are saying suggests to me that, for perfect accuracy, photon mass should be taken into account in calculating, for example, transition frequencies or Compton scattering. Perhaps the effect is too small to have been detected??

Let me try to conceptually clarify a point by making an analogy. Let us suppose you are in a dark room. You then switch on the light, so the bulb is shining. Now you turn off the light, then you do not see anymore the bulb. But however it does not go through your mind that the bulb has die out, that it has ceased of existing just because it does not shine anymore. Let us thus express it this way: the corporeity of the bulb is preserved when it is not shining.

Now, let us apply it to the photon. When it carries energy, i.e. when it “shines”, one assumes implicitly that it does exist. However, if it transfers all its energy to an absorber, then one irreflexively deducts that the photon has faded away. But what really happened to it. It just has lost its oscillatory energy, i.e. it does not “shine” anymore, and hence it cannot be seen anymore.

So, should we come up with two logics, one for the bulb and an opposite one for the photon. Well, the task is then to search for a way to verify the assumption made.

In compton elastic scattering the photon  may loose just a part of its energy,

but in actual transitions it is quanta which is absorbed. There must be a match

delta E= h nu

Eric, 

If seen as a gyratory-oscillatory dipole, the photon has then two energies. One has an oscillatory nature (defined by its frequency), which is the energy to which we usually refer to.  The other one refers to the structural cohesion of the photon. It is a negative energy (bonding energies are negative) since it is the energy that has to be transferred to dissociate it. In terms of dipole, it is the energy necessary to break apart the dipole. Photons effectively dissociates in two electric charges, which once free acquire the quantum state of an e- and an e+.  

Juan,

Your comment is just textbook stuff. What is the novelty? 

Stefano,

I guess you have heard a lot about virtual particles, you could say that they are ghost particles. Theorists are nonetheless very fond of them. The electric field, which is a force field, is seen as being carried out by virtual photons, i.e. ghost photons in your favourite term. The electromagnetic field being instead carried out by energetic photons.

I would like also to point out that the emission of single photons has already been achieved. Usually, they are emitted in very huge number. When they fly away being aligned we call it a beam, e.g. a laser beam. When they form a crowd we call it a field, e.g. the electromagnetic field. There collective behaviour as field can be quite complex and surely constitutes a very important topic.

However, here we are exclusively interested in the photon itself and in particular we worry about what happens to it once “dead”, i,e. having lost its energy in transferring it to an absorber. Does any “footprint” of it is definitively lost, or it has mutated into a virtual particle, i.e. a ghost particle, i.e. an energy-free quantum, according to each one preference to label it. Inversely, when some energy is transferred to a virtual particle it becomes then an easily observable particle.

Now, those really interested in the issue may try to devise a way to indirectly evidence the preservation of the corporeity  of  “dead” photons, i.e. after been absorbed. They do not oscillate anymore, so how could we still detect them?

Eric,

Indeed the photon energy (not always all of it) is transferred to any particle it strikes. But one thing is its energy that it does loose and another thing is its corporeity, which it does not loose. So, de-energized photons passes to populates free-space as vacuum quanta, similarly to CMB photons that populate free-space as microwave photons, which are no more than excited states of vacuum quanta.

Photons do have energy but they have no mass. The difference between mass and energy comes out very easily in the Orbital Model of the structure of elementary particles. Mass appears when the particle structure goes off its quantum equilibrium state. See chapter 7. Differentiation between the origin of energy and that of mass, of the paper: Space, this great unknown.

When you pretend that the photon is something else than an electromagnetic radiation, and its smallest unit, you have to prove it. And to keep compatible yourself with all the undulatory proofs, which are hundreds. Say, the anti-reflect coatings, the interferential colors, all the radiocrystallography, etc. etc. etc.

I think it's clearest to interpretate that a photon exists only at emissions and absorptions, not between them when it's a wave packet which can interfere diversely and resonate coherently with massive particles.

The photon does not absorb 1.02 MeV, it has the energy of 1.02 Mev

When it has this energy, it reaches the threshhold for pair cration and that energy goes elsehere

That energy is not a binding enegy, it just has that energy.

It is not a bag that breaks up when you hit it.

However I understand that there can be different points of view.

Planck agonize for more than 10 years about his idea.related to black body radiation.

Finally everybody started to use his idea, but he still did not   believe it himself.

There are extensive threds on RG arguing what a photon is, with no agreement.

If you want to see what a photon is based on Mawell, I recomend  the later chapters of

L. Schiff, quantum mechanics

Esa,

You are perfectly free to think this way. This is the conventional way to look at it. However it is a very conservative standpoint. You will be a good defender of officialdom. But this makes quite improbable that you would come up with any scientific breakthrough. I nevertheless hope to be wrong about this feeling!

Dear Georges ~

I’m not accustomed to thinking of a photon (or even an electron…) as a structured entity. A baryon of course has structure – it is a bound state of more elementary objects (quarks); the total mass/energy is the energy of the constituents minus the binding energy. Similarly, an atomic nucleus is a bound state of protons and neutrons. Though I never thought of it that way till you pointed it out, a photon can be interpreted as a bound state of e+ and e-. Those constituents are virtual particles, which is perhaps why the (negative) binding energy can almost completely eliminate the known energy associated with the mass of electon plus positron, rendering the total photon ("rest") mass effectively “almost zero”.

Your explanation essentially amounts to drawing attention to the fact that

γ + e− → e−

can be thought of as

(e− + e+) + e− → e−

That makes no difference to the proposition that the total energy (including the e+e- binding energy) is conserved in this interaction. I’m afraid I still cannot see any justification for the idea that “something” remains of the photon after its absorption.

Photons have structure. They represent a string of equidistant warps. Warps are one-dimensional shock-fronts and are solutions of a homogeneous second order partial differential equation. During travel, warps keep their shape and their amplitude. Each warp represents a standard bit of energy. 

Photons obey the Einstein-Planck relation E = h v.

Both warps and photons can travel over huge distances without losing their integrity. Waves cannot do that.

If a photon is absorbed, then the energy, which is contained in the warps is consumed by the absorber. Thus the photon vanishes. The warps may turn into kinetic energy of the absorber, or the warp turns into a clamp, which is a spherical shock front and carries a standard bit of mass because it can temporarily deform its carrier. Clamps quickly fade away.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Hilbert_Book_Model_Project/Information_Messengers#The_absorption_dilemma

The idea that a photon is a structured compact object surrounded by some fluctuating massless dipoles allows to understand the Mach-Zehnder phenomenon qualitatively in a "classical" manner without any mystical arguments concerning "interference" of "probability waves". For details cf.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299234932_SECRETS_BEHIND_THE_MACH-ZEHNDER_PHENOMENON_1A

 The idea that hadrons as well as leptons and photons and some other 'force' mediating objects are compound systems of 2 types of ultimate building blocks of matter, called 'hypotrons' is the central issue of the 'hypotron theory'. For a summary of preliminary results cf. https://www.researchgate.net/project/Hypotron-Theory

For an incomplete working paper (in German) cf. the links embedded in http://kreuzer-dsr.de/kdsr/bulletin/KDSR_HypotronTheory_Flyer.pdf

Research SECRETS BEHIND THE MACH-ZEHNDER PHENOMENON (1A)

   Dear George,

   Your metaphor of died photon or alive photon can be approached in different situations for providing us with one answer of yes or no. Let me try to explain point by point what I want to say:

  1. The photon is a fundamental particle in vacuum which carries energy and momentum with rest mass zero at a constant velocity. Thus in vacuum if must be alive, it can never be absorved by one electric charge. In such a case it would be absorbed by one excited state of one electric charge as it happens with one electron of one a atom (i.e. electrons bound to a nucleus electromagnetically interacting).

          Thus in this case Yes.

   2. In condensed matter crystals, amorphous, liquids the photon is absorved because there are many different bosons to exchange its energy and momenta: phonon (optic or accustic), magnons etc...which depend strongly of the temperature, symmetries of the lattice or the atoms by they selves.

         Thus in this case No.

   3. But in solids there are special effects which makes an excited state without decaying in the fundamental state due to have intermediate forbidden states to avoid the photon to be emitted. This is the flourescence, phosphorescence, chemiluminiscence, electroluminiscence, radioluminiscence, etc ....and many others which very different excited states.

       Thus in this case the answer is Yes, but only during a certain amount of time where the excited state can survive to other interactions or quantum fluctuations.

   4. Another special case are the suviving and excitation of such photons when then can form a bosonic coherent state as it happens with the laser or the maser.

In such a case one single photon doesn't keep alive but many of them together. I don't know if this your answer Yes and No.

Absorption of a photon means, by definition, the transition between a state of n photons to a state of n-1 photons. This process can be described by the action of an operator on the state of n photons that, indeed, destroys a photon and that's why it's called an annihilation operator. 

The energy of the full system is, usually, conserved, so the photon's energy is transferred to the possible final state, that, by definition, has n-1 photons. And this means that for the transition to be possible at all, additional degrees of freedom must be specified, in order that all the usual conservation laws (i.e. momentum, angular momentum and so on) hold. 

Another topic, that's treated in all textbooks and courses on quantum field theory...

   Given the previous comment that it seems to need the second quantization mechanism to understand (badly or wrongly) the spectral absorption of a photon, I am going to extend a little bit my previous post waiting for the comment of George. I suppose that he has one idea of what he wants to know about this question.

  The photon only can be kept during a certain time "alive" in a metastate in molecules, atoms or nuclei. The trick is that once the photon excite one particle to a higher level, if the selection rule forbbids the decaying then the photon is obligued to be at such state. For instance, the electric dipole approximation is always forbidden and in principle the photon could remain "alive" for ever. At higher levels as the electric quadrupole or magnetic dipole approximations there is a decay time. The physical reasons for such forbidden transitions is that there is not a conservation of angular momentum (orbital L, spin S or both) or discrete Lorentz summetries (P,T,C).

Dear Daniel,

I agree with your two posts, however they do not exactly answer the question. You refer to the mechanisms of absorption. The point of the question deals with trying to know if the photon only looses its energy in being absorbed, and if its corporeity, body or structure, as you may like better to refer to it, is however preserved. May be the figures at the end of the paper: Space, this great unknown, could help making clearer our question.

Fig. 1. Scheme of the absorption of light, by a black body or a polarizer

Fig. 2. Scheme of the frequency doubler set-up

Fig. 3: Scheme of the doubling photon set-up

Dear Georges, 

One way (or the only way?!) to imagine of what is going on when a photon interacts with an atom or a single (free) electron (Compton phenomeneon) is to consider a photon as a cloud of electric dipoles (ED). Some of the EDs are oscillating in a 'harmonic' manner and thereby specify the photon's energy, and some of the EDs are fluctuating in a highly chaotic manner and thereby a specify the quasi-stochastic behaviour of photons when they are members of a beam of photons which interact with some solid objects or with atoms and molecules of a liquid or a gas. The characteristics of these chaotic fluctuations are influenced by the interaction process of a photon with an atom or, for example, with 3 atoms or molecules specifying the plain surface of a piece of solid resulting in a reflection.

In such a model a photon is reduced essentially to one type of constituents, i.e. the electric dipoles of ONE type of an 'ultimate building block of matter and radiation', that is in the mentioned Hypotron Theory

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Hypotron-Theory

the hypotrons with charge +1/3 and -1/3. "Absorption" by an atom then can be thought of a 'join' of the dipole cloud of the photon with the dipole clouds of the electrons and protons 'inside' the atom, which results in an 'excited state' of the atom, i.e. a change of the characteristics of the fluctuations of the cloud of all EDs 'inside' the atom. Such an 'excited state' need not be stable, instead, after some 'lifetime' has passed, a part of the EDs 'reorganize' as an individual again and leave the atom, i.e. the atom ejects a photon.

In order to describe such model in the categories of "space" and "time", it seems to necessary to look for generalizations for the traditional space-time concept of SR, which relies to much on the notion of the 'continuum' which is involved with the notion of something (i.e. the 'events' of flat 'space-time') being 'point-like'. How to abandon the intuitive notion of the 'continuum' by some appropriate mathematical theories seems to be an open question. Maybe 'B-numbers' ( cf. my B-number project at RG ) or an appropriate discrete reformulation of classical (relativistic) mechanics and classical (relativistic) field theory will help.

Dear Karl,

You say: One way (or the only way?!) to imagine of what is going on when a photon interacts with an atom or a single (free) electron (Compton phenomeneon) is to consider a photon as a cloud of electric dipoles (ED).

In the model I am working with, the photon itself is not a cloud of electric dipoles, but just a single dipole. However, It may (optionally) be considered that it emits a cloud (or field) of virtual photons, i.e. of virtual electric dipoles.

The photon is not a dipole of anything-and, since it doesn't carry electric charge, it doesn't spontaneously emit photons (there's no such thing as multiphoton vertex-the odd-photon vertex vanishes identically).  Nor does it emit charged pairs.  This is a trivial exercise in energy-momentum conservation. 

All this is known for decades, and taught in all courses on electromagnetism, so it's astonishing to find it ``discussed''. It's elementary electromagnetism now and nothing more or less than creation and annihilation operators, for the technical part. They just carry a Lorentz index and only gauge invariant quantities are relevant. 

Cf. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2006/RM2820.pdf for the classical theory and http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 for the quantum theory for an overview.

Dear Stam,

You say: This process can be described by the action of an operator on the state of n photons

This part is just fine.

But you add: that, indeed, destroys a photon and that's why it's called an annihilation operator

It looks like because the operator used has been called “annihilation operator” then the photon is consequently annihilated, and that Nature has to obey to Maths to know how to behave. But things do not work this way. Nature has no idea of maths, It just knows about physical interactions. Maths is a specific language created by the mankind in an effort to describe (always incompletely) physical processes. It is just an approximation to reality, always improvable, which indeed offers the advantage to allow us coming up with quantified results.

“that indeed destroys the photon”: just prove it experimentally.

“and that’s called an annihilation operator”: the problem with this is that Nature just does not know about this annihilation operator, It has never heard about it. This way of thinking is quite conflictive. Let us suppose that in the future someone comes up with a different math that still better explain the process of absorption. Which one of the two maths is then the one Nature is applying to know how to behave?  I hope you got the point.

I do not doubt that the absorption process has been quite well approached on mathematical grounds. But no approach is the definitive one. Approaches can endlessly been improved. Some times they even differ radically.

But the question was: what happened to the “poor” photon in the process of being absorbed?  He (the photon) wants to know if it is going to “die out” in being absorbed or if he will just loose its energy (his energetic put on) but save the “body”. All processes correspond to transfer or absorption of energy. What is the destiny of the carrier is the energy is another issue. Your “annihilation operator” cannot be a proof of anything, it is just a mathematical tool. Do not confuse tool and physical reality.

@StamNicolis

Thanks for the reference of Coleman's 1961-paper.

Whether or not a photon can be considered to have a structure, not as a dipole, but as a kind of dipole 'gas'/'cloud', is a matter of scale or size of these alleged dipoles. 

All of the stuff of traditional QED is not appropriate for such a model of a photon,  the same applies to classical theories which are based on space-time considered as a continuum even on any lowest scale.

To achieve progress in understanding and describing the very nature of a photon in a reasonable and convincing way one must have the courage to get rid of the blinders, flaws and fallacies of traditional physical theories.

Well it's possible to test all these statements-and they have been tested-they're the background to experiments. 

Words are cheap-where's the ``alternative'' model of the photon that (a) is consistent with all that's known about it and (b) predicts something that isn't? The discussion has focused on words about (b), ignoring the constraints coming from (a). It doesn't make sense talking before having done the calculations-and these are homework problems now. 

There's nothing *new* (theoretically) about the photon to discuss, that's why it's used as background, because it is understood, in great detail, theoretically and experimentally. The focus is on experiments, that go beyond ``thought experiments'' since the theory is known. (The description of natural phenomena is mathematical, nothing more and nothing less. And the only thing that matters is that it be internally consistent.  How to measure the results is a totally different question.)

To measure the effects of annihilation and creation operators for photons  it suffices to count-and that's been done for decades (among others by Haroche and his group-e.g. http://www.lkb.upmc.fr/cqed/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2016/06/Recife.2008.2.pdf ).

Stam,

Your second post is quite disappointing. You looks like being quite dogmatic, something which in Science is not well seen. You are this type of person who thinks that what they have studied or what has previously been expressed in publications or textbooks is the definitive word. Indeed an amazing way of thinking. May be you should read about the philosophy of science to learn being in the future more cautious about dogmatic asseverations.

Karl,

You say: Though I never thought of it that way till you pointed it out, a photon can be interpreted as a bound state of e+ and e-.

This is not exactly what I said. I said: a photon can be interpreted as a bound state of q+ and q-. The nuance is very important. The photon is not conceived as been formed by a pair e+ e- but by a pair q+ q-. The difference stands in that the two charges q+ and q- acquire their quantum state as e+ and e- only after they get free once the photon is dissociated. Inside the photon these two opposite charges would be in a different quantum state, specific to their union into a very tiny electric dipole. 

Often our mind requires some time to accept or assimilate concepts or standpoints we are not used to it. I think that the best way to look at it is to ask to oneself: would not I be loosing an opportunity to devise something fundamentally new. Thanks for keeping your interest in spite of the difficulties of the road.

Juan,

You said: The photon does not absorb 1.02 MeV, it has the energy of 1.02 MeV

Indeed photons may carry energy above the threshold for pair creation.

Have you ever thought about why photons are stable and travel millions of years through space without dissociating. Well, they just cannot. One way to solve the problem is just to assume that they have no structure as some do (at the very first the atom was seen as just a ball).

If you try to go deeper in the issue, you have to ask yourself why very energetic photons, above 1.02 MeV do not dissociate into a pair e+ e-. They just cannot even though they have enough energy to do it. The reason why they cannot is the law of conservation of momentum.   For it to be achieve they must collide with something. I am just expressing the very fundamentals on particle physics.

“When it has this energy, it reaches the threshhold for pair cration and that energy goes elsehere”

But what is this elsewhere? When a photon with an energy above 1.02 MeV dissociates through collision (photon with lower energy cannot), these 1.02 MeV go into providing a mass of 0.51 MeV/c2 to each resultant e+ and e-. The dissociation of very energetic photons is experimentally well settled.

I point out that the energy that may be carried by any particle should be well differentiated from the bonding energy that its structure may have (an energy that is conventionally considered negative) since it represents the input energy that should be provided to the particle to dissociate it.

You may also read the just above post I addressed to Karl.

Up to now I have only seen theoretical answers to the question asked. On my part I have widely expressed the issue on conceptual grounds. I would be much pleased to get the participation of experimentalists, and to know if they could glimpse someway way to try check the issue. I have myself come up with two thought experiments.

Yes, I knew about conservation of momentum, thank you.

Talking about live or dead photons,

one way you can "revive" a beam of light is by placing a crossed polarizer in between

two other polarizers which are at right angles to each other.

But we all know the usual explanation..

   Dear George,

   Does the weak and strong interactions exist within your model? It seems that you only consider electric charge and masses.

   How do you explain the repulsion of the electric charge in the nucleus?

   And the disintegration of a neutron without any kind of scattering?

To think of a photon as an object which has many charged constituents, which can not be observed as 'free' individual objects, but contribute to the interaction of a photon, is somewhat similar to Gell-Mann's quark model for hadrons, which of course had been setup for quite other reasons.

Such a model of a photon opens a variety of possibilities to understand quantum physical phenomenons, in particular the Mach-Zehnder phenomenon and related "which-way" experiments in a qualitative manner without using any notions of mystic interference of "probability amplitudes".

It would be a big mistake not to explore how such a model can be formulated mathematically. This of course can not be done simply mixing some parameters and producing some numerical output. 

Attempts of a describing a photon's structure shakes the fundamentals of "space-time" considered as a continuum, because, if the photon is an 'extended' structured object and any other particles are 'extended' structured objects too, then what is the phyical meaniing of a 'point', i.e an 'event', in space-time? What might be a way to overcome the notion of the 'continuum' of space-time at the ultimate lowest scale?  

According to ordinary theory of special relativity there is unfortunately no rest system of a 'free' photon, which would simplify considerations concerning such an alleged structure of a photon. This dilemma of a missing rest frame might be solved if one looks very carefully under what mathematical conditions the Lorentz transformation can be derived, being aware that the numerical statement "speed of light = c in any intertial frame of ref." is always afficted with a non-vanishing uncertainty, and therefore this numerical statement can be and must be understood in the sense of a limit, which finally should allow to use the notion of a rest frame even for photons.

Daniel,

Yes, the model explains the strong and weak forces and it does it in a very straightforward way, with a much easier explanation than that of the SM . The strong bond between e.g. protons and neutrons has been explained in detail and also graphically represented in the Deuteron Project, among other texts such the Fundamentals of the Orbital Model.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313900108_Deuteron_project

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1998821

The weak forces have been more briefly considered but they are also straightforwardly derived.

The disintegration  of  the free neutron does not need scattering since the overall products of disintegration allow the conservation of momentum.

Research Proposal Deuteron project

Article Fundamentals of the Orbital Conception of Elementary Particl...

  Dear Georges,

  Frankly, if you have only electric charge I cannot understand how you can get a so different interaction of the ordinary electromagnetic interaction just changing the state of the charges? On the other hand the strong and the weak interaction are well determined experimentally and even the electroweak interaction too?

  Sorry but let me to come back to my previous question. How do you get to have the electric charges (positives) within the nucleus stable and at such huge electrostatic energy?

   And the disintegration of the neutron within the nucleus? The desintegration in general if you have only electromagnetic interaction?

Daniel,

How are bonded two atoms of H to form an H2 molecule? Well, the two H atoms share their peripheral electrons, forming so a bond between them.

Now, let us consider the union between a proton and a neutron. In the framework of the orbital model, the neutron shares the electric charge of its shell with the adjacent proton, forming so a strong bond due to the wrapping orbital so formed, quite similarly to that of the H2 molecule.

It is not the electric field itself emitted by the charge that has changed, it is the exchange of the electric charge that generates the bond. The strength of the bond varies with the specific quantum state of the vehicular charge in each type of bond, e.g. the deuteron, the triton, the helion3, etc.

The graphs on the deuteron project are very explicit, and the bond strength in each case is indicated.

Dear Juan,

After while I thought that your mention to the Compton elastic scattering was a useful point. I didn’t get at first what you wanted to exactly stress. Let me try to use it fruitfully to intent clarifying the “destiny” of the impinging photon in the extreme case in which it looses all its energy.

According to each collision specific condition, the impinging photon looses a varying amount of energy and is scattered accordingly. So far, so well! Now let us consider the bordering case in which the impinging photon gives away all its energy. What happens to it then?

In the case it would still wear an infinitesimal amount of energy it would still exist. But why should the photon miraculously disappear when loosing this infinitesimal energy. Couldn’t it just keep being deflected in its new de-energized state, ending up undetected? This is the issue that has to be pursued to be experimentally checked.

    Dear George,

    In a molecule you are right that there are bonding states (also antibonding) with hopping electrons to join the atoms. But notice that this is made more than three orders of magnitude (1.75 fm to 529 nm) for the H atom. This tell us that the electric force is around a million of times in the nucleus which needs an extra explanation for the bound state usually associated to the Schrödinger equation. On the other hand you need to have a particle much hevier than the other where the potential can support such bond state. The things are not so simple as you says in your post. The analogy is not so simple to follow, at least for me,

   But at the same time you don't answer me how the strong and the weak interactions work in your theory.

Daniel,

The analogy was just to make sure you correctly understood the type of bonding used in the framework of the Orbital Model. From a rough classical viewpoint it can be glimpsed that the carrier q- charge would revolve at relativist speeds within the bonding orbital.  From a quantum mechanical approach, if you feel enough confident, just try to modify the Schrödinger equation to adequate it to the specific type of bond proposed. Who said that it would be easy!

If you don’t see it feasible, it is your free choice. However it would be more constructive, if you have clearer views, to start working on them.  Try to get answers by yourself. It looks to me that you ask questions that show that you have not much read the different papers loaded. I cannot re-explain too often what has been already explained in the diverse papers.

Those really interested in the Orbital Model, and see it more handy and consistent than the Standard Model (QCD), should try to come up by themselves with some new developments.

If it's equivalent, which formulation to use is a matter of taste (that's what ``more handy''  means). The only relevant questions are, whether the new formulation reproduces everything already known, to the same precision and whether it predicts something new. There's a huge literature on quarkonia, already, as well as from lattice QCD.  The Standard Model is a consistent description, so the statement that it isn't is, simply, wrong. So it's meaningless to claim that this approximation is better than the Standard Model, from the point of view of consistency. 

If there are any issues about describing the interactions of photons, however, in the new formalism, this means that the formalism isn't, yet, ready for prime time.

That's why just what the point of the exercise is, seems unclear.

I would like to stress a most fundamental concern. The most crucial point in developing the fundamentals of the Orbital Model was not to come up with any primordial unobserved item. I made care to just use the electric charge, which has been discovered a long time ago, and to build up the model by just attributing to it variable quantum states. It is a very fundamental point of the model in resorting only to quantum states to account for all elementary particles.

In this framework the electric charge is taken as the sole physical entity that exists. All elementary particles would just correspond to the multiplicity of quantum states it can acquire.

Now, when applying this standpoint and considering the structure of neutral particles, such as e.g. the photon, seen as an electric dipole it then appears a lot of concerns to be solved.

Over time I have looked at a variety of different standpoints, however centring essentially in the Standard Model, whose evolution I have followed since its emergence. My main reasons for rejecting it is that it appeals to invented primordial items, i.e. a variety of quarks and gluons.

The exclusive recourse to the electric charge is the very essential point of the model, on which is based its specificity.

Dear George,

Fundamental particles is a very far subject of my field of work as to try discuss about alternatives to the Standard Model. All that I have is a humble culture of how the present physics works and what are its basic laws. I was asking you about the desintegration of the neutron because this is (for me) the main characteristics of the beta decay that Fermi started given a model (the four-fermion model). For me it is relatively easy to understand

       udd -> uud + W-(boson) -> uud+ electron antineutrino + electron

that has a decay of around 15 minutes at vacuum. Obviously the only interaction able to change the flavour is the weak interaction and you have here a charge-current interaction.

Also the strong interaction acts at the scale of the fms that I have also mentioned you for the interaction of the charges in the nucleous, but with a structure constant (137 times) higher than the electromagnetic one and between the interval of 1 to 3 fms it is very attractive between the proton and neutron. Thanks to colour confinement even you can get new hadrons instead of gluons under energetic scattering(preventing radiation of gluons). The asymptotic freedom also explains how these interactions are confined in small regions and you cannot find isolated quarks. The Yang-Mills equations substitute Maxwell equations of macroscopic electrodynamics and both can be treated as gauge theories.

In all that I have understood in orbital model you don't need to employ the above two interactions and you have only electrodynamics and perhaps gravitation. Is that right? And the justification is that there new particles discovered that they cannot be considered within the SM increasing the number of quarks or the number that they can be combined (2 mesons, 3 baryons, 4 or 5)

Well, I must say that your idea is very appealling as purpose because simplifies many things but it seems that you don't want to explain phenomena simple as the decay of a neutron and this is the typical behaviour of the people who presents new models in RG. They always tell you that you must read their papers that obviously are not well published under peer reviewers.

George, I wish you the best and I must tell you that I have a great admiration for the people able to create new thoughts and ideas, but with enter in the details and defend them with clear arguments. The criticism to the CERN and the selling of their research using fantastic names is fully shared with you.

   Good luck with your research!

Dear Daniel, 

I invite you to read the chapter III.2. Neutron, on page 6 of the published article in 1999:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1998821

Article Fundamentals of the Orbital Conception of Elementary Particl...

Daniel,

About the sectarian politics of the CERN let me cite this post of Erkki Kolehmainen.

The biggest problem is that the Standard Model is like the text in The Holy Bible or the Koran and would need a Paradigm Shift (as launched by Thomas Kuhn) to become changed. The believers of SM do not allow it and do not accept any other competing models. So, it will take time but as the history of science shows it is possible.

I can add myself, based on twenty years of experience, that the Standard Model is sustained by a constant counterfeit propaganda, and by the SM advocate referees who censure any intent of publication diverging from this surpassed model. They block process with impunity by silencing all voices in disagreement. The CERN cares only about preserving its huge interests. It has become a ballast for an open progress of elementary particles physics.

Statements about ``accepting'' and ``rejecting'' , based on personal opinion, rather than impersonal calculations, sound particularly interesting when they're combined by complaints that the only reason one's preferred project hasn't received the recognition it deserves (another metaphysical attribute) is that everyone else is, also, a ``believer''.  Because the act of selecting a theory that way is meaningless. 

It's fascinating how many people focus on the sociological side of science (recognition), rather than the technical-actually learning the craft of doing and understanding the calculations and imagining and realizing the appropriate experiments. While the sociology of the two endeavors has diverged, one ought to know better-if one's studied physics. If one hasn't, then focusing on the sociology is, simply, meaningless-and this ought to have been noticed as being part of any scientific field.  One does this sort of activity for one's own satisfaction. If the primary issue put forward is social recognition-it's the wrong place for looking for it. The reason is that the content matters, not the wrapping paper. And focusing on *who* has done something, rather on *what's* been done is, also, meaningless, beyond history and sociology.

Quarks and leptons carry electric charge-but other charges, too. And, some, of the consequences of  how these are described-quantitatively-is presented, for instance, here: http://pdg.lbl.gov/ There are the results any effective description must reproduce-at the very least.  (The accompanying words of metaphysics don't matter-for these results a completely automated way of obtaining them is available, e.g. https://porthos.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/CTQFT/files/SM-FeynmanRules.pdf and http://pdg.lbl.gov/2017/reviews/rpp2016-rev-lattice-qcd.pdf that doesn't rely on the personal opinions of anyone.) 

Once the rules of calculation have been automated, it's time to think of beyond the Standard Model. It's complete. 

Cf. also: http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html

What is largley absent from Standard Model, is the detailed mechanics, as is fairly well

known in the electromagnetic sector.

It is relatively good at Clasification, its best strongpoint.

Cromodynamic is just a partial description, for example.

But strong and weak interactions still have very incomplete descriptions.

so SM is no barrier to further detailed research.

By the way:

To think of what might be beyond the "Standard Model" based on mathematical and ontological non-convincing QFT-phantasies has already started for more than 20 years ago. For example, the typical notions of Gell-Mann's quark model ("color" and "flavour") can be recovered  in the hypotron model and is realted to the notion of "electric charge", but in a manner which is quite different from any kind of contemporary non-convincing QFT-phantasies. 

http://kreuzer-dsr.de/kdsr/bulletin/KDSR_HypotronTheory_Flyer.pdf

http://www.kreuzer-dsr.de/kdsr/bulletin/KDSR_HypotronTheory_Preface.pdf

http://www.kreuzer-dsr.de/kdsr/bulletin/KDSR_HypotronTheory-CH22.pdf

Since I have been asked about the neutron let me comment the following:

As well known, each free neutron disintegrates into a proton, an electron and a neutrino. So, what a more straightforward approach that considering the neutron as the fusion of a proton and an electron. However, the electric charge brought by the electron would not preserve its quantum state as e- but would acquire a bond state specific to its union to a proton.

It is essential not to assimilate the electric charge (q-) to an electron (e-), as it is usually done, since the electric charge can acquire a variety of quantum states, and can be detected as e-, µ-, π-, K-, etc. The electric charge would always have an associated wave function Ψ defining its quantum state, and so the type of representative particle.

Once clarified this point, let us go back to the fusion of a proton and an electron. The electric (q-) charge of the electron (e-) would then acquire a new quantum state specific of their union, while the much heavier proton would preserve its state as a proton. This scheme allows seeing the neutron as formed of a core proton wrapped by the orbital of a q- charge. Graphically, the neutron can be represented by a central proton with a negatively charged shell. This shell would be in an energetic (massive) state of: m(n) – m(p) = m(shell) = 1.29 MeV.

The disintegration of the neutron would just correspond to the escape of its shell, whose electric charge q- would then recover its quantum state as an e-, and emitting  an anti-neutrino. This scheme is much simpler and less artificial than its corresponding representation from QCD, and avoids the need of imaginary, artificial and undetectable items such as quarks and gluons. Instead the QOD (Quantum Orbital Dynamics) only resort to the electric charges q- and q+, to which is always associated a wave function Ψ that defines each specific quantum state.

I think theoretical physicists should find this model (QOD) more attractive than the corresponding one from QCD. I am quite sure it could be expressed in an easier mathematical framework.

Dear Georges,

All of what you mention is basically realized in hypotron theory (HT).

Moreover, HT 'explains' why

"photon + photon --> electron + positron"

as well as

"electron + positron --> photon + photon"

can happen at all,

and what can be considered as the reason why a nucleus decays at all,

and why proton/antiproton and electron/positron are the only stable particles with charge 1,

and why there are just 4 types of 'force' mediating particles with zero-charge, 

and many other things of particle physics which physicists of the 21-th century consider to be 'true'.

Of course, the 'hypotrons' and 'hypotrinos' of HT are (physical) artefacts, similar to what Gell-Mann introduced in his quark-model. However, please note, that even the vague notion of the 'continuum' of space-time, filled continuously with 'field' objects or 'point-like' objects are (mathematical and physical) artefacts. Even the infinite character of 'natural numbers' (founded mathematically by the Peano axioms) and 'calculus' (initiated by Newton and Leibniz)  are artefacts, on which most of traditional physics relies. And even the idea that on any scale it would be possible to identify 'individuals' as countable entities, is an artefact.

It is a question of logical consistence and ontological well-foundedness and of predictive power which of those artefacts are useful for physical theories and therefore can be believed to be "true", which should be better expressed precisely in 'statistical' terms as:

"today and here in our solar system it seems reasonable to consider the 'degree of trueness' to be high".

http://kreuzer-dsr.de/kdsr/bulletin/KDSR_HypotronTheory_Flyer.pdf

 The H atom has been explained in terms of proton and electron, i.e. in terms of positive and negative electric charges. In nuclei containing neutrons, the orbital model keeps the same pattern based on the electric charge by considering the neutron being formed by a core proton and a shell traced by a negative electric charge. Why shouldn’t we extend this pattern based solely on the electric charge to all elementary particles, so we would get a unitary conception of the different building blocks of matter?

Although in Hypotron Theory (HT)  the notion of 'supercharge' plays a key role, HT is   based solely !!! on the 'electric' charge.

 Because the known particles have properties beyond that of electric charge, that's why. And those properties can't be described by electromagnetic interactions only-whose properties imply certain relations between measurable quantities-that can be found to be in contradiction with experiment.  The interaction of protons with protons and neutrons in nuclei  isn't described by electromagnetism-it's described by  forces that aren't electromagnetic, since these can be subtracted out now and something's left.  And that was found out fairly quickly, after the neutron's discovery. And the decay of the neutron isn't mediated by electromagnetic interactions-if it were it would be completely different. 

It's possible to test all these hypotheses-e.g. whether the neutron is a bound state of a proton and an electron-and they have been tested. One way of realizing it isn't is by measuring its spin; the neutron has spin 1/2, (e.g. https://www.ncnr.nist.gov/summerschool/ss11/pdf/Neutron_Spin_Echo_tutorial.pdf ;  

or here: http://neutrons2.ornl.gov/conf/nxs2011/pdf/lectures/Majkrzak-1.pdf)

the proton and electron have, each, spin 1/2. Elementary calculations in quantum mechanics  imply that the addition of two spin 1/2s can't give a spin 1/2.  

Stam,

The dialogue would be more interesting if you would pay more attention about what is said and do not come up with wrong interpretation.

In the Orbital Model, the neutron is seen as composed of a core proton and a negative shell of spin 1 and mass 1.29 MeV/c2.  When detaching from its core proton the shell acquires the quantum state of an electron (0.51 MeV/c2) at the time that part of the excess energy is liberated into the emission of an anti-neutrino.

Since the spin of the neutron shell is taken equal to 1, thus the spin of the neutron is 1/2. Furthermore it decays into an electron (s = ½) and an anti-neutrino (s = ½). This is in agreement with the shell spin being 1.

The strong interaction is not due to the electromagnetic field itself but it is said to be due to the exchange of the q- charge of the neutron shell.

The old theory that the neutron would be a bound state of a proton and an electron has been discarded a long time ago. If you are unable to see the difference, it makes me being really disappointed about the cleverness of your comments. Please be respectful of what is said and do not come up with distorted interpretations.

The words don't matter. If the claim is that there's a neutron shell, what is needed is a way to test its consequences. It's perfectly possible to do without it, up to now. If the neutron shell is equivalent to what's known about the neutron, it doesn't matter. If it leads to consequences in contradiction with what's known, it's wrong. It's nothing new that the neutron can be written as a linear superposition of proton, electron and antineutrino. And all its properties can be deducted from that, taking into account how the week interaction Hamiltoniam acts on these states. So what else is new?

Stam, 

I can feel from your part a strong adversity to the model proposed. If you think the model is wrong why don't you join some other forum more affined to your point of view.

To all participants,

I would like to highlight what has been my aim in initiating this forum. Since I am somewhat old my intention was to offer the Orbital Model as an intellectual heritage to those that would like to further work on it in order to move forwards its development.

Let me define, as I see it, what developments should be intended. Those with a good background in Quantum Mechanics could try to find out the wave function corresponding to the structural quantum state of specific particles, i.e. wave function that would provide the mass, the magnetic moment, the spin, etc.

I think that the more appropriate particles to start with could be the tandem electron-muon, likely the easiest to handle. The muon can be seen as an excited state of the electron. In a semi-classical approach I have myself treated the muon within the framework of the harmonic oscillator, obtaining a very close mass value to the experimental one. I think that to improve the fitting with the experimental value it should not be treated as a perfect harmonic oscillator, but some kind of corrective factor should be introduced

To those interested in pushing further the Orbital Model, let me point out that any achievement would be obviously registered as their own merit. But I ask them to be respectful with the fundaments of the model. A very essential point to be respected is to exclusively resort on the integer electric charge as the structural carrier of all elementary particle. So, it is just a matter of associating in each case the adequate wave function that would define their structural quantum state. Any change in the fundamentals would deadly devirtualise the model.

The scientists likely better prepared for this task would be those working in the analysis of the data from the LHC experiments. Unfortunately, the sectarian approach imposed, based exclusively on the QCD, is a strong impediment for an open minded analysis of the experimental results.

Metaphysical expressions don't count-unless they can be identified with  calculations, in which case, personal opinions don't matter (the word ``adversity'' is meaningless in this discussion).  I don't see a model at all-only words that use, some, of the known technical terms and purport to say something new-which is, unfortutnately,  meaningless, because where the words agree with what's known it's the result of known calculations and where they don't it's the result of the fact that the correspondence between the words and the known mathematics breaks down.  There isn't any notion of ``respect of fundaments of a model''-the description is either mathematically consistent or it isn't. If it is, it either is consistent with all known measurements and predicts new ones, or it isn't and/or doesn't.

The ``orbital model'' doesn't describe any calculations that aren't already known and isn't more efficient for computing quantities that aren't. How to calculate rotational spectra of the transformations of subatomic particles is known-though the technical details are complicated, these don't have anything to do with the confusion  discussed in this thread. They're the generalization to the weak and strong interactions of what's already known from electromagnetism.

The muon is definitely not an excited state of the electron. The reason is that, given what's known about the interactions of the muon and the electron,  there's no way to define   a-local-creation operator, that applied to a one-electron state, gives a one-muon state.  That's why it doesn't make sense to talk of the muon as an excited state of an electron: the corresponding creation operator is non-local.

How to compute the magnetic moment of a particle is known for decades. 

The relations between the electric charges of quarks and leptons are, similarly, known to be fixed by the consistency of the electroweak interactions. They aren't inconsistent with fractional charges. 

Since the mass and the spin of a particle are Lorentz invariant quantities, they are fixed once and for all-they're inputs, not outputs.

 Stam,

Definitely you should look for another forum.

The problem is that further discussion of this ``orbital model'' reveals that it's inconsistent with what's *already* known, instead of revealing new ways of describing what is known, that would, then, lead to predictions. Unless this issue is addressed, the model is useless.

The problems about the wavefunctions of particles have been addressed in countless papers on quarkonia, for instance. 

And it's no secret either that it's possible to compute the mass renormalization of the muon in perturbation theory using free particle states, i.e. harmonic oscillators-that's what the Standard Model is about. This doesn't mean that one is computing the mass of the muon, however and there's a reason for that, that's well understood. 

Stam, 

I still invite you to defend your extremely dogmatized conservative opinion somewhere else. According to what you state it looks like that everything has been already definitively solved. Your radically conformist standpoint is well known, so it would be a huge deliverance if you would defend it in a traditionalist site where no doubt you would be much applauded.

There's nothing to defend-and the qualifiers bestowed on descriptions of natural phenomena are meaningless-as are opinions.  Regarding the Standard Model everything has been worked out-what's going on now at the LHC are measurements to discovery precision at new energy scales. 

There are open questions in physics-but how to compute the magnetic moment of particles is no longer one of them. This isn't an opinion-it's the outcome of known ways of calculating properties that can be checked by experiment and don't depend on the personal views of anyone.  So an alternative way of doing this calculation is, just, too little, too late, if it's correct; and meaningless, if it's in contradiction with known facts. 

Maybe the observable part of reality does not pose so many questions, but most of the reality cannot be observed. Observers can only access information that comes from the past and it is transferred to them via vibrations and deformations of the continuum that embeds both the observed event and the observer. Observers perceive in spacetime format, while at the situation of the observed event the information is available in the Euclidean format. What the continuum does not transport is not perceived. This includes observers that are equipped with the most sophisticated measuring instruments.

It is an odd attitude to consider everything that cannot be observed as non-existent. The so called scientific method represents such an odd attitude.

Photons are still not well comprehended and pose many questions.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Hilbert_Book_Model_Project/Information_Messengers#The_absorption_dilemma

To those interested in the Orbital Model:

Let’s start to work, now that the fundaments of the model have been expressed.

It would be a huge breakthrough to find out the quantization of the neutron shell. i.e. why its shell has a mass of 1.293 MeV/c2 and not some other value? Why its magnetic moment has a value of -4.70589 nm and not another one?

It would be another breakthrough to find out the quantization of the deuteron bonding shell. Why its bonding strength is of -1.02649 MeV, and not some other value? Why its magnetic moment has a value of +0.85744 nm and not another one?

Those that would find some tangible quantitative solution could try to publish it.

Theoretical physicists working on the QCD have surely solved much more complicated issues. Why wouldn’t they thus be able to solve the simpler issue here proposed? Or do they suddenly become unskilled outside the QCD framework? Besides, it is much said about the need of going beyond the Standard Model. So, let’s see if they are still talented in working on a different framework.

Anyone is invited to try further developing the Quantum Orbital Model (QOD). It is based on a specific mathematical map of the structure of elementary particles, which relies on the diverse quantum states that their orbital structure can take. Their orbital structure is traced by the integer electric charge q, and since it applies to all elementary particles, the model presents thus the great advantage of being unitary.

 Different mathematical maps can be intended to be applied. My preferred one would be a Quantum Mechanical map, properly adapted to this specific issue. As for the atom, the square of the wave function (Ψ2) would allow deriving the map of the distribution of the density of presence of the q charge within the orbital structure. 

An alternative would be a relativistic semi-classical approach, since the kinetics of the q electric charge carrier of the orbital structure is expected to be relativistic, i.e. revolving at a speed close to that of light. It might be a simpler approach to start with.

A stochastic process that generates the locations where an elementary particle can be detected owns a characteristic function that acts as a displacement generator. That is why the generated location swarm appears to move as one single object. These elementary particles form conglomerates that again possess a footprint, which is generated by a stochastic process that owns a characteristic function. This time the characteristic function is the superposition of the characteristic function of the stochastic processes that generate the foot prints of the components. Again the characteristic function acts as a displacement generator, which ensures that the conglomerate moves as a single unit. With others words, the characteristic process ensures both the coherent movement of the footprint, and it establishes the (spectral) binding of the components. Here the adjective "spectral" is applied because the characteristic function equals the Fourier transform of the location density distribution of the footprint. So, not some uncomprehended forces install the binding, but instead, the cooperating stochastic processes perform that job. The characteristic function of the conglomerate equals the superposition of the component characteristic functions, and the superposition coefficients may oscillate, The oscillation modes determine the internal configuration of the conglomerates. This is the reason why in an atom the electrons appear to oscillate in the atom's shell.

Quantum physics tends to stop at the wavefunction of particles. Here the stochastic processes construct the wavefunction because the generated location density distribution equals the squared modulus of the wavefunction of the particle. Many aspects of quantum physics become comprehensible when the activity of the stochastic processes is considered.

 Dear Georges,

Some of the ideas of QOM, in a slightly modified manner (two types of 'hypotrons' instead of electrons only), will be one of the topics of numerical investigations in the context of hypotron theory.

By the way :

Originally I discovered the concept / notion of  'supercharge' (cf. https://www.researchgate.net/project/Hypotron-Theory  )

by considering a particle cluster consisting of 

1 proton + N positrons + (N+1) electrons

in the context of QM.

Electric charges, color charges, and spin are properties of platforms on which particles reside. The particles inherit these properties. The platform get these properties from the parameter spaces that act on these platforms. The parameter spaces correspond to versions of the quaternionic number system. These versions differ in the way that they are ordered. Cartesian coordinate systems in combination with polar coordinate systems achieve this ordering. The platforms float on a background parameter space. That background parameter space corresponds to a selected version of the quaternionic number system. In a quaternionic Hilbert space it is the version that defines the inner products of pairs of Hilbert vectors. The difference in ordering symmetry explains the short list of electric and color charges that exist in the standard model.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Hilbert_Book_Model_Project/Hilbert_Book_Model#Symmetry-related_charges_and_fields

Dear Karl,

Personally I wish you success with your model, however as a scientist I am defending a standpoint using exclusively the integer electric charge and an associated wavefunction. My efforts are oriented in coming up with a most simple mathematical apparatus. The QM approach has given excellent results at the atomic level. So, I am trying to extend it at a much smaller scale, i.e. that of the elementary particle, which is of the order of the Fermi.

Best regards.

What happens to the photon when it is absorbed? Does it die out or does it just loose its energy and keep alive?. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_happens_to_the_photon_when_it_is_absorbed_Does_it_die_out_or_does_it_just_loose_its_energy_and_keep_alive?#59722ede96b7e4e985657fda [accessed Jul 21, 2017].

For those who are not familiar with the complexity that may have structural orbitals I am posting a picture of a variety of structural atomic orbitals, as an example of the complexity that can be expected for the structural orbitals of elementary particles, accessible at:.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318598749_Structural_atomic_orbitals

Data Structural atomic orbitals

About Mathematical Strategies

The Standard Model uses 6 types of quarks, but since these are “coloured” (they are tri-chromatic) this ends up giving 18 “coloured” quarks. Similarly the anti-quarks are also 18. So, we finally have 36 different quarks. But we have also 8 different types of gluons for the bonding task. Thus the SM fundamentals resort on 44 different primary elements. And this without going into the artificiality and disparity of the different masses of quarks. With such a big number of wild cards such a model can manage fitting to almost any experimental result, it is just a matter of playing with all these items, which hardly could be more opportunely counterfeit.

Such a mathematical approach allows predicting almost whatever experimental result, and so much that I am quite sure it could even predict the weather! Besides, wrong predictions are discarded, so we are left only with those that presumably coincide with experimental detections. No, doubt the SM is the king of all models, i.e. it is the king of artificiality. In that respect it will be difficult to surpass it. Furthermore, anything supporting the Standard Model is published. Anything that doesn’t is not. Logical deduction: the SM is the very best model.

Oppositely to the strategy of QCD, the QOD (Quantum Orbital Dynamics) resorts on a single primary element, the integer electric charge, and the variety of elementary particles is regarded as corresponding to the variety of quantum states that the electric charge can acquire. So, instead to come up with a variety of invented primordial particles, the QOD resorts only on quantum numbers, which provide the diversity of quantum states of the structural orbital of elementary particles.

The bulk of the assumed Gell-Mann-quarks and assumed Gell-Mann-gluons of Gell-Mann's quark-model was one of the reasons for me to think about an alternative. The result is Hypotron Theory, where only 2+2=4 types of most elementary objects occur, and which allows to consider proton and neutron as compound system of 'hypo-quarks' (i.e. hypotron-pairs) as well as to consider the neutron as a compound system of proton+electron+antineutrino (which goes back to an idea of A.O.Barut).

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Hypotron-Theory

For a short remark on the 'history' of Hypotron Theory see one of the updates of the project https://www.researchgate.net/project/Hypotron-Theory

  If you have a form to calculate the mass, the proton could be a good fashionable candidate:

  High-Precision Measurement of the Proton’s Atomic Mass

F. Heiße, F. Köhler-Langes, S. Rau, J. Hou, S. Junck, A. Kracke, A. Mooser, W. Quint, S. Ulmer, G. Werth, K. Blaum, and S. Sturm

Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 033001 – Published 18 July 2017

While photons are rightfully identified as information messengers, there is no such support for gluons. In a quaternionic model, pairs of quaternions that are each other's inverse and that own real parts whose size equals the size of the imaginary part can implement the activity of gluons. These pairs can switch the direction of an imaginary quaternion to another dimension. That imaginary quaternion must be perpendicular to the imaginary parts of the gluon-like pair. The gluon-like pair can shift the anisotropy of a platform to another dimension, which means that it can switch the color charge of quarks. However, the direction of the imaginary part of the gluon-like pair must be perpendicular to the direction of the anisotropy of the quark. Thus for every quark color exists a suitable gluon-like quaternion pair.

This indicates that the behavior of gluons can be related to the behavior of versions of the quaternionic number system. The platforms on which elementary particles reside inherit these properties from the parameter space that occupies the platform.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Hilbert_Book_Model_Project/Slide_S1

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Hilbert_Book_Model_Project/Quaternions#Quaternionic_rotation

   Dear Hans,

   You need to take into account that the gluons interact themselves producing "asymptotic freedom" for the interaction between quarks. Thus the conservation of pairs depend strongly of the energy that you are considering

  That imaginary quaternion must be perpendicular to the imaginary parts of the gluon-like pair.

   What is then the geometrical meaning of parts in the gluon-like pairs? I think that George is seriously trying to develop a model in this thread.

   Dear Hans,

   Let me try to explain a little bit better and assuming I have understood you.

I understand that the abelian U(1) unitary group can be associated to the electric charge the same as

   U(1) ----->   1 electric charge (complex number rotation S1)

   SU(2) -----> 3 flavour charge (quaternions S2 Pauli matrices)  

        within Clifford algebrae

   SU(3) -----> 8 color charge (biquaternions S3 Dirac matrices)

    The fact that the photon is without electric charge means that it doesn't interact with another photon (electromagnetism is a long range interaction), at difference of what happens with weak and strong interactions. Thus the lines of the electromagnetic field are only from one charge to another while weak and strong fields are not in such a form that, for instance, a line field borning in one color of a quark is not only dieding in another quark.

The complexity of the simplest atomic orbital, i.e. with a single electron, represented in the picture at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318598749_Structural_atomic_orbitals

points out the complexity that may have the structural orbital of elementary particles. Their QCD representation would be just a very coarse and counterfeit approximation to their structure, with the disadvantage of not applying to all particles, and thus not being a unitary approach. In our viewpoint it is a wrong conceptual strategy to come up with a lot of invented primary particles, quarks, gluons, etc. which furthermore are not observable.

The QOD (Quantum Orbital Dynamics) approach only resorts on a structural wave function and to quantum numbers such as those for atomic structural orbitals, i.e. n, m, l, s, j, ml, ms, mj. In such approach the imaginary primary particles (quarks and gluons) with their much exotic properties: colours, fractional electric charge, opportunist mass of quarks, very counterfeit properties of gluons, etc., are replaced by quantum number associated to the quantum mechanical representation of their structure.

So, the QOD presents the great advantage of only resorting to the integer electric charge (a real physical element) and to quantum numbers correlated to the diverse quantized structural states that it may acquire, almost all of them being highly ephemeral, with a lifetime usually shorter than 10-20 s. So, the very highpoint of QOD is that it does not use any unreal, artificial primary particle.

Data Structural atomic orbitals

@Mohamed Hassani : "Compton (1923) implies". NO.

http://jacques.lavau.deonto-ethique.eu/Physique/15postulates.pdf

8. The photon lack of mass and clues about the nature of mass

Let us now think about the fact that the electric charge has a single value, while its attached mass is diverse and covers a wide range of discrete values (e.g. e±, µ±, π±, K±, p±, etc.). So, we take the electrical charge as a primordial element since it does not support any change, and consider the mass as a secondary element, since it supports a wide range of values. This fact strongly points out that mass is not a primary entity but a derivative, since it shows a wide set of different values (1, 206.84, 273.23, 966.6, 1836.12, etc., where the electron mass has been taken as the unit), resulting from different quantizations. Doesn’t this fact suggest something known? Well, we could make a parallelism with the atom, which may have different excited states, i.e. its structural orbital supports a variety of bonding quantum states with different energy levels.

Now let us apply this consideration to the mass associated with elementary particles and consider it proceeding from the quantum state of their structural orbital, which allows us to easily understand the reason for the vast multitude of masses, as it corresponds to a wide variety of structural quantum states, and hence the analogy with the atom. At this point the attentive reader will already be fully aware that the unitary electrical charge is used as the only vehicular element of the structure of elementary particles, which leads to a comprehensive unification of their structure, reducing thus their mass spectrum to a conjecture of quantum states.

Let us extend this reasoning to the photon. As we know it has no mass but energy, representing a unique case given that it violates the famous mass-energy equivalence (E = m c2). According to the formula, since the photon has no mass its energy should be null. The photon breaks thus the rule as being an energy carrier without a coupled mass. So, it is an interesting singular case because it challenges our concept of mass and energy, and their relationship. How come the photon can be an energy carrier lacking of mass? At least, it is a case worthy of some consideration, beyond a simple evasive conventionalism.

According to the orbital model, although energy and mass are associated, with one exception represented by the photon, they do not have the same origin. The energy comes from the structural oscillation while the mass appears when the structure is in a stressed state, when leaving its ground state. Applied to bosons it is equivalent to say that when their dipole is in structural equilibrium it is massless but if it vibrates then it has energy. If the dipole is subject to structural stress while vibrating then it has both mass and energy.

For further reading go to chapter 8 of: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301585930_Space_this_great_unknown

Article Space, this great unknown

"As we know it has no mass but energy, representing a unique case given that it violates the famous mass-energy equivalence (E = m c2)"

Dear Georges,

Your statement expresses the common misinterpretation of "E=mc^2".

The notions of  'energy' and 'mass' in relativistic mechanics can be founded on the fundamental principles of conservation of four-momentum in scattering processes and on the invariance of the "length" of the four-momentum-vector (according to the metric (-1,+1+1+1) of Minkowski space) with regard to transformations among intertial frames of reference according to matrices of the Lorentz transformation group.

"Mass" of a free object that carries energy P_0 = E/c is given by the "length" of the four momentum (P_0,P_1,P_2,P_3).  For photons this length vanishes, which means that photons have zero-mass, but does NOT mean that P_0 is zero too.

Massless particles, e.g. photons, satisfy the equation

(P_0)^2 = (P_1)^2 + (P_2)^2 + (P_3)^2 , 

whereas massive particles satisfy 

(P_0)^2 = (P_1)^2 + (P_2)^2 + (P_3)^2   +   M^2 c^2

This finally leads for massive FREE particles to the equation

E = gamma M c^2

where gamma = 1 / sqrt( 1 - v^2/c^2) , and therefore

E = M c^2   +   ( gamma - 1 )  M c^2 = "rest energy" + "kinetic energy"

Expanding (gamma-1) in terms of v/c then leads to

E = M c^2 + 1/2 M v^2 + ( terms of higher order terms in v/c )

Hence in common speech "E = M c^2"  makes sense for massive particles only, but not for photons.

Photons are strings of warps that each carry a standard bit of energy. Warps are solutions of a homogeneous second order partial differential equation. They are one-dimensional shock fronts. These solutions are known for more than two centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_equation#General_solution  

The solution has the form F(x-ct) c= ±1 

The idea that mass is not an independent quantity of an 'elementary' particle, but related to (electric) charge (of it's alleged 'most elementary' constituents) is also supported in Hypotron Theory. The predicted 5 types of stable particles are listed in the table of chapter 17:

http://www.kreuzer-dsr.de/kdsr/bulletin/KDSR_HypotronTheory-CH17.pdf

In order to get an idea how as mass formula might emerge from considerations concerning the hypotron configuration numbers of the cores of the stable particles is to consider the empirical mass ratios of proton/electron and neutrino/electron where the mass M_neutrino of a neutrino is assumed to be 0.05 < M_neutrino < 0.5 in units of eV/c^2. Proceeding this semi-empirical way one can arrive at various trials for an expression for the mass ratio as a function of charge and supercharge of the predicted stable particles, and thereby as a function of the hypotron configuration numbers of the 'cores' of the stable particles. One of these trials leads to the values of mass ratios mentioned in the text of RG-project-goal of my project 'Hypotron Theory'.

In addition to the hypotrons of the 'core' of a particle one could also consider the number of hypotrons of the particle's 'shell', and, again, try to proceed as sketched above. Following this way one is puzzled by variuos prime numbers which occur in these considerations.

The prediction of the 'duolon' and 'quatrolon' (everything must have a name!) as stable particles and in particular the huge mass ratio of the quadrolon indicates that 'duolon' and 'quatrolon' (if they exist at all) might be one of the building blocks of the alleged 'dark matter' which is assumed to exist somewhere in the universe.

It is also interesting to note that Hypotron Theory predicts the existence of a boson with charge 3, called 'tripolon' (everything must ae a name!). A 'bound state', i.e. a compound object of 'tripolon' and 'anti-tripolon' (called 'tripolonium') can be thought of representing a 'Higgs particle', provided this 'Higgs particle'  really and undoubtly exists.

Note that the notions of 'boson' and 'fermion' are defined by particular 'symmetries' of the hypotron configuration numbers. How to setup the relationship to a 'spin'-based definition is one of the problems of Hypotron Theory which are not yet solved completely.

To differentiate energy from mass let`s make an analogy with a spring. Let’s suppose that to have mass the spring should be strained. So, when not strained it wouldn’t have mass, but if it vibrates it would nevertheless have energy. This is the case of the photon. Since it is regarded as a dipole, if the dipole is not strained it wouldn’t have mass, but if it is vibrating it would thus have energy, without having mass.

Let’s put it in other terms. If the structural orbital is in its fundamental equilibrium state, then the structural dispersive and compressive forces would be in equilibrium (see their mathematical formulation in the fundamentals of the orbital model), and hence the structural orbital wouldn’t be strained, and so it wouldn’t have mass. However, if its structure is vibrating it would consequently have solely energy. In the analogy, the spring stands for the bonding force of the dipole.

As it is emphasized in the paper the formulation E = m c2 does not evidently apply to the photon, since it has no mass. Now, in the physical framework of the orbital model this formula doesn’t apply to the photon because its structure is considered to be in the fundamental equilibrium state, so the structural dispersive and compressive forces compensate, and hence its structural orbital has no mass. But the diversity of vibrational frequencies it can acquire grants it a continuous spectrum of energies.

Everyone is evidently free to use another scheme, it is just a question of which one will end up being more effective and will provide the simplest approach. Remember that any approach is a map with its own degree of approximation to a credible representation of the territory.