Alternative Charge Carriers and the Higgs
Boson: Part I
John A. Gowan
(Revised September, 2016)
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Abstract
A functional class of particles, the
"Alternative Charge Carriers" (ACCs), is recognized as
characteristic of the Electroweak domain and the Weak Force
Intermediate Vector Bosons (IVBs).
The photon is the massless gauge boson of the
electromagnetic force, and its
intrinsic
entropic motion ("velocity c") creates the metric domain
of spacetime. The massive Higgs boson regulates or "gauges" a
functional class of particles (of otherwise mixed heritage), the
Alternative Charge Carriers (ACCs), which serve to transfer
charges among and between baryons and leptons during decays,
transformations, and other interactions. The ACCs include
leptons, neutrinos, and mesons, all particles whose original
(primordial) masses are regulated by the Higgs boson, ensuring
the invariant transformation of elementary particle identities,
mass, and other conserved charges and parameters (including
single particle transformations, not just particle-antiparticle
pairs). The weak force IVBs are also involved as special
mediating field vectors, which essentially select the
appropriate ACC from the Higgs energetic domain and then effect
its transfer. The IVBs are an essential part of the weak force
transformation mechanism since their great mass is necessary to
access the particles sequestered in the invariant Higgs domain,
but they are not themselves an ACC. They are instead like a
specialized heavy utility vehicle necessary for access and
transport. (See: "
The 'W' IVB and the
Weak Force Mechanism".)
The massive Higgs boson recreates the primordial energy-density
of spacetime in which the ACCs were first made during the early
moments of the "Big Bang". The Higgs acts like a "Bureau of
Standards" against which any new ACC must be referenced or
measured. Suppose you want to transform a baryon, as in a
neutron decaying to a proton? Very well, you must go to the
Higgs domain and get "standard issue" ACCs to do the job. In
this case you will need a (virtual) meson to carry the quark
flavors, a (real) electron to carry the electric charge,
and a (real) electron antineutrino to balance the electron's
identity (number) charge, since the electron is newly minted. A
negatively charged "W" IVB of about 80 proton masses can access
the appropriate energy sector of the Higgs domain and get the
ACCs you require. I know the bureaucracy and record keeping is a
pain, but only in this way can elementary particles created
today or tomorrow be exactly the same as those created eons ago
in the "Big Bang" - maintaining the elementary particle symmetry
of our universe, which ensures that any elementary particle ever
created can "swap out" with any other (of its type), or
annihilate at any time with an appropriate antiparticle - the
ultimate act of symmetry-restoration/conservation.
In a universe lacking antimatter - such as ours - ACCs serve to
balance charges and preserve charge conservation during particle
interactions. ACCs enable the decay of heavy hyperons,
quarks, and lepton "families" to our familiar electromagnetic
ground state through channels that obey charge conservation,
despite the lack of antimatter in our Cosmos. Hence the ACCs are
yet another conservation consequence of our "matter-only"
Universe. The Higgs boson may be thought of as a gauge particle
or "marker" for the convergence of the weak and electromagnetic
forces: the specific energy level necessary for the weak force
creation of
single members (rather than
particle-antiparticle pairs) of the ACC class of particles.
Postscript I:
Let's take another look at "
proton decay".
Why is it so much harder for baryons to completely decay than
leptons? We find that at the electroweak energy level - energies
found in the IVBs of our Sun - baryons may be transformed but not
created or destroyed, whereas leptons, mesons, and neutrinos can
be both transformed and created/destroyed. So far as we know,
since the time of the "Big Bang", no new (single) baryons
have ever been created, and likewise, none have ever been
destroyed (particle/antiparticle pair creation sums to zero and
doesn't count). The problem is one of a lack of suitable
Alternative Charge Carriers; baryons carry two conserved charges
that leptons lack: 1) color charge, carried by all quarks and
gluons; 2) baryon number charge, the analog of lepton number
("identity") charge, the latter carried in "implicit" form by all
massive leptons and in explicit form by neutrinos. Neutrinos
function as ACCs for the massive leptons with respect to lepton
number or identity charge, but a baryon neutrino has yet to be
discovered, if it exists at all. (See: "
Lepton
Number or Identity Charge".) Both color and baryon
number charge are strictly conserved, so both must somehow be
canceled, neutralized, or otherwise balanced before a baryon may
be created or destroyed.
The color charge of the
baryon's strong
force, which functions to keep the three quarks of a baryon
confined within the tiny region of the atomic nucleus, is carried
by a field of 8 "gluons", massless field vectors moving at
velocity "c". Each gluon is composed of a color/anticolor charge
pair. (There are three color charges ("red, green, blue" - purely
names of convenience with no relation at all to color in the sense
of a pigment). Quarks also carry color charges, and it is the
round-robin exchange of color charges between quarks (via gluons)
that permanently confines quarks to the nuclear boundary (unlike
photons and electric charges, all gluons and color charges attract
each other). The total color field of any atomic nucleus always
sums to zero color (or color neutrality - "white"), and this
charge must be conserved. There is no ACC available to carry the
total color charge of the baryon - only an antibaryon can do it -
and herein lies a major sticking point for baryon
creation/destruction (or "proton decay" as the problem is
generally known - the aforesaid missing baryon neutrino is another
problem). (Mesons are always color-neutral, carrying
color-anticolor charges of the same color, and hence cannot
function as an ACC for the color charge of a 3-quark baryon.)
However, there is an "internal" solution to this color-charge
conservation problem, not requiring an anti-baryon, which stems
from the origin of the quarks as three-way partitions of a
primitive heavy lepton (the "leptoquark"). The total color charge
of a baryon must sum to zero ("white") - both because their parent
particles (the leptons) began with no color charge at all, and
because (in consequence) gluons carry color/anticolor charges in
all possible combinations, summing to the original zero color
charge ("white") of the parent lepton. This means that if we can
compress a baryon sufficiently and symmetrically it will return to
its original leptoquark state and the color charge will
self-annihilate. (Note that we are once again contemplating
compressing matter to some earlier, more primitive, higher-energy
state.) A leptoquark is a primordial, high energy lepton, the
heaviest member of the leptonic spectrum (the spectrum of
true
elementary particles - particles with no internal components
and with associated neutrino identity charges). A Leptoquark is
split into three parts (quarks) by its own too-great mass and
electrical self-repulsion (
and the
action of the "Y" IVB?). (See also: "
The
Origin of Matter and Information") . There is no color
charge in this (leptoquark) state because the quarks are still
nascent or virtual rather than real (they have not yet separated
from each other), but there is a lepton number charge, and this
can be carried by a neutrino ACC, the very heavy leptoquark
neutrino whose presence in the Cosmos today is registered as the
mysterious "dark matter". Hence proton decay is possible if we can
sufficiently and symmetrically compress a baryon to its original
leptoquark size, at which point a leptoquark antineutrino can
cancel its baryon number charge - or it can emit its own
leptoquark neutrino as an ACC, accomplishing in either case the
same charge/symmetry conservation. (See: "
Table of the Higgs Cascade".)
As we have noted above, compressing a baryon sufficiently and
symmetrically to cause its color charge to self-annihilate
requires the "X" IVB, which does not exist in the electroweak
energy domain (nor its "mint"). We must travel to the GUT energy
domain to find such a heavy IVB, a special press stamping out
shiny new (electrically neutral) leptoquarks in some far-away
country. These leptoquarks (analogs of heavy neutrons) achieve
electrical neutrality simply because their internal quark
composition allows such a configuration. It is these electrically
neutral leptoquarks which go on to decay asymmetrically via the
weak force "X" IVB, producing the excess of matter-only baryons
which comprise our asymmetric matter-only universe. Hence we see
the necessity for the partially-charged quarks (to form
electrically-neutral leptoquarks which can live long enough to
undergo weak force asymmetric decays), and the relationship
between the quarks, baryons, and leptons is explained. (The
necessity for three energy "families" arises because three
families presents the possibility of many more (16) electrically
neutral three-quark combinations.) Although obviously necessary,
the asymmetric weak force decay of primordial
electrically neutral leptoquarks remains a
mystery, an unexplained or "given" parameter of our Cosmos,
perhaps attributable only to the statistical imperative - or
anthropic fiat - of an abundantly fertile Multiverse. With the
excess of matter-baryons comes an equal excess of leptoquark
antineutrinos, exactly balancing the baryon number of the
universe, and accounting for its "dark matter" content (these are
presumed to be very heavy neutrinos - perhaps as much as five
times heavier than a proton).
Because the "X" IVB is so massive, in our present-day universe the
only place proton decay can reasonably be expected to occur is in
black holes - where, unfortunately, the reaction cannot be
observed. In fact, insofar as proton decay is concerned, the main
difference between a black hole and an "X" IVB is simply size.
Perhaps, at least in a functional sense, a black hole is a
gravitational example of a gigantic Higgs boson/IVB combination (a
"gravity mint"). This would be just another instance of the
gravitational metric of black holes overtaking all functions of
the electromagnetic metric. Even photons become massive (since
they cannot travel freely), the symmetry condition g = c means
that time vanishes (because the clock stops), and all field
vectors of the electromagnetic domain are converted into
gravitational analogs. (See: "
A Description
of Gravity"). The "X" IVB is so prohibitively heavy that
proton decay would be rare indeed were it not for black holes.
Perhaps this is the "real" cosmic function of black holes -
destroying baryons and converting them back to light (solving the
"singularity" problem at the center of black holes).
Heavy baryons ("hyperons") are
born in the
"Big Bang" via an asymmetric weak force process; decay via
ACCs to the nucleons of our ground state; join together
gravitationally to form galaxies, stars, and planets, producing in
the process (via the strong force) the elements of the Periodic
Table. Baryons chemically create life via their electron shells
and the electromagnetic force. Baryons die/decay in black holes,
where they are crushed into light, eventually escaping as "Hawking
radiation", the final symmetry-conserving interaction required by
Noether's Theorem. "Information" is the
"golden thread" running through the conservation laws governing
the evolutionary unfolding of the singular feature giving
significance and meaning to our universe, and providing its
rationale: self-conscious life.
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