Paraphoton

Last updated

Paraphoton is a hypothetical elementary particle that does not interact with matter and is capable of transforming into an ordinary photon and vice versa by means of oscillations. [1] [2] Its existence is postulated when generalizing the model of quantum electrodynamics with two coupling constants and two photons with different masses. Paraphotons are presumably constituent parts of dark matter.

Properties

The paraphoton is a massless gauge boson that can have low-energy effective couplings to the ordinary matter. The paraphoton coupling to electrons would behave much like the invisible axion-electron coupling at keV energies. [3]

Related Research Articles

Dark matter Hypothetical form of matter comprising most of the matter in the universe

Dark matter is a form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe and about a quarter of its total mass–energy density or about 2.241×10−27 kg/m3. Its presence is implied in a variety of astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects that cannot be explained by accepted theories of gravity unless more matter is present than can be seen. For this reason, most experts think that dark matter is abundant in the universe and that it has had a strong influence on its structure and evolution. Dark matter is called dark because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it doesn't absorb, reflect or emit electromagnetic radiation, and is therefore difficult to detect.

Electron Subatomic particle with negative electric charge

The electron is a subatomic particle, symbol
e
or
β
, whose electric charge is negative one elementary charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, ħ. Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: they can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavelength for a given energy.

Muon Elementary subatomic particle with negative electric charge

The muon is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 e and a spin of 1/2, but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a lepton. As with other leptons, the muon is not known to have any sub-structure – that is, it is not thought to be composed of any simpler particles.

Neutrino Elementary particle with extremely low mass that interacts only via the weak force and gravity

A neutrino is a fermion that interacts only via the weak subatomic force and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small (-ino) that it was long thought to be zero. The mass of the neutrino is much smaller than that of the other known elementary particles. The weak force has a very short range, the gravitational interaction is extremely weak, and neutrinos do not participate in the strong interaction. Thus, neutrinos typically pass through normal matter unimpeded and undetected.

Photon Elementary particle or quantum of light

The photon is a type of elementary particle. It is the quantum of the electromagnetic field including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, and they always move at the speed of light in vacuum, 299792458 m/s.

Wave–particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that every particle or quantum entity may be described as either a particle or a wave. It expresses the inability of the classical concepts "particle" or "wave" to fully describe the behaviour of quantum-scale objects. As Albert Einstein wrote:

It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do.

Standard Model Theory of particle physics

The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces in the universe, as well as classifying all known elementary particles. It was developed in stages throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the work of many scientists around the world, with the current formulation being finalized in the mid-1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, confirmation of the top quark (1995), the tau neutrino (2000), and the Higgs boson (2012) have added further credence to the Standard Model. In addition, the Standard Model has predicted various properties of weak neutral currents and the W and Z bosons with great accuracy.

Lepton class of elementary particles

In particle physics, a lepton is an elementary particle of half-integer spin that does not undergo strong interactions. Two main classes of leptons exist, charged leptons, and neutral leptons. Charged leptons can combine with other particles to form various composite particles such as atoms and positronium, while neutrinos rarely interact with anything, and are consequently rarely observed. The best known of all leptons is the electron.

The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle postulated by the Peccei–Quinn theory in 1977 to resolve the strong CP problem in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). If axions exist and have low mass within a specific range, they are of interest as a possible component of cold dark matter.

R-parity is a concept in particle physics. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, baryon number and lepton number are no longer conserved by all of the renormalizable couplings in the theory. Since baryon number and lepton number conservation have been tested very precisely, these couplings need to be very small in order not to be in conflict with experimental data. R-parity is a symmetry acting on the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) fields that forbids these couplings and can be defined as

In physics, mirror matter, also called shadow matter or Alice matter, is a hypothetical counterpart to ordinary matter.

Two-photon physics

Two-photon physics, also called gamma–gamma physics, is a branch of particle physics that describes the interactions between two photons. Normally, beams of light pass through each other unperturbed. Inside an optical material, and if the intensity of the beams is high enough, the beams may affect each other through a variety of non-linear effects. In pure vacuum, some weak scattering of light by light exists as well. Also, above some threshold of this center-of-mass energy of the system of the two photons, matter can be created.

Cosmic neutrino background

The cosmic neutrino background is the universe's background particle radiation composed of neutrinos. They are sometimes known as relic neutrinos.

Physics beyond the Standard Model Theories attempting to explain the deficiencies of the Standard Model, Quantum field theory and general relativity

Physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) refers to the theoretical developments needed to explain the deficiencies of the Standard Model, such as the strong CP problem, neutrino oscillations, matter–antimatter asymmetry, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Another problem lies within the mathematical framework of the Standard Model itself: the Standard Model is inconsistent with that of general relativity, to the point where one or both theories break down under certain conditions.

Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation device that emits coherent acoustic radiation

Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SASER) refers to a device that emits acoustic radiation. It focuses sound waves in a way that they can serve as accurate and high-speed carriers of information in many kinds of applications—similar to uses of laser light.

In theoretical physics, unparticle physics is a speculative theory that conjectures a form of matter that cannot be explained in terms of particles using the Standard Model of particle physics, because its components are scale invariant.

The chameleon is a hypothetical scalar particle that couples to matter more weakly than gravity, postulated as a dark energy candidate. Due to a non-linear self-interaction, it has a variable effective mass which is an increasing function of the ambient energy density—as a result, the range of the force mediated by the particle is predicted to be very small in regions of high density but much larger in low-density intergalactic regions: out in the cosmos chameleon models permit a range of up to several thousand parsecs. As a result of this variable mass, the hypothetical fifth force mediated by the chameleon is able to evade current constraints on equivalence principle violation derived from terrestrial experiments even if it couples to matter with a strength equal or greater than that of gravity. Although this property would allow the chameleon to drive the currently observed acceleration of the universe's expansion, it also makes it very difficult to test for experimentally.

Terahertz spectroscopy detects and controls properties of matter with electromagnetic fields that are in the frequency range between a few hundred gigahertz and several terahertz. In many-body systems, several of the relevant states have an energy difference that matches with the energy of a THz photon. Therefore, THz spectroscopy provides a particularly powerful method in resolving and controlling individual transitions between different many-body states. By doing this, one gains new insights about many-body quantum kinetics and how that can be utilized in developing new technologies that are optimized up to the elementary quantum level.

Dark photon Hypothetical force carrier particle connected to dark matter

The dark photon is a hypothetical hidden sector particle, proposed as a force carrier similar to the photon of electromagnetism but potentially connected to dark matter. In a minimal scenario, this new force can be introduced by extending the gauge group of the Standard Model of Particle Physics with a new abelian U(1) gauge symmetry. The corresponding new spin-1 gauge boson can then couple very weakly to electrically charged particles through kinetic mixing with the ordinary photon and could thus be detected. The dark photon can also interact with the Standard Model if some of the fermions are charged under the new abelian group. The possible charging arrangements are restricted by a number of consistency requirements such as anomaly cancellation and constraints coming from Yukawa matrices.

Luigi Di Lella

Luigi Di Lella is an Italian experimental particle physicist. He has been a staff member at CERN for over 40 years, and has played an important role in major experiments at CERN such as CAST and UA2. From 1986 to 1990 he acted as spokesperson for the UA2 Collaboration, which, together with the UA1 Collaboration, discovered the W and Z bosons in 1983.

References

  1. Robilliard, C.; Pinto Da Souza, B.; Bielsa, F.; Mauchain, J.; Nardone, M.; Bailly, G.; Fouché, M.; Battesti, R.; Rizzo, C. (2009-07-01). "The BMV project: Search for photon oscillations into massive particles". Canadian Journal of Physics . 87 (7): 735–741. doi:10.1139/P08-141. ISSN   0008-4204.
  2. Afanasev, A.; Baker, O. K.; Beard, K. B.; Biallas, G.; Boyce, J.; Minarni, M.; Ramdon, R.; Shinn, M.; Slocum, P. (August 2009). "New Experimental Limit on Photon Hidden-Sector Paraphoton Mixing". Physics Letters B . pp. 317–320. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2009.07.055 . Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  3. Hoffmann, Scott (9 July 1987). "Paraphotons and axions: Similarities in stellar emission and detection". Physics Letters B . pp. 117–122. doi:10.1016/0370-2693(87)90467-9 . Retrieved 27 July 2020.