cosmologic plasma recombination

[Norman Albers]

We think that in an era some 300,000 years into the cosmic expansion, there was sufficient cooling that electrons joined protons in stable, neutral atoms. The other great change at this point is the decoupling of light which was previously caught in an interactive dance with the charged particles. I am looking at the possibility of fractional photons and they have a very different history. At earlier stages where states of higher energy (protons, etc.) condensed, there would have been the decoupling of the fractional part of the energies at those and higher levels. This is a much earlier freedom and is surely important to cosmic evolution at those earlier stages.

[insane_alien]

so ehh whats a fractional photon? and why haven't i seen something about this on the astronomy websites i visit. surely if these fractional photons exist somebody would have sent up a satellite to look for them.

[Klaynos]

the decoupling of light which was previously caught in an interactive dance with the charged particles

 

Charged particles intereact using photons... I suspect I'm missing your meaning here as I'm not a big astrophysicist, so would you care to elaberate?

[Norman Albers]

In my investigation of wave packets it seems that the field can support disturbances of less than unit angular momentum in the total packet. We know atoms emit and absorb whole units only, but from my semiclassical perspective there may exist packets in the range <0,1> of h-bar, or correspondingly total energy of a fraction of h-nu. Having written this a few months ago from a position of near isolation and having yet no computer, now I Google and find quantum mechanics people (I guess) dealing in this. You will see me as the eleventh entry under 'fractional photons'. I say that these packets constitute dark energy, and I am observing here their very different cosmologic evolution. I am not yet educated in, say, intermediate QM or Quantum Field Theory, but I think I have a valid offering. Can you tell me just how others are using this term? It would be an unseeable part of the fluctuation background, akin to but decoupled from the blackbody radiation. In the population of unit photons we see really THE BODY, not the full possible native characteristic of the radiation field.

[Norman Albers]

Today I think that as soon as any high energy particle state was able to exist in equilbrium, from then on unit photons were coupled to particles, until plasma recombination. I don't need to consider a stage-wise decoupling.

[Norman Albers]

Can folks help me understand the nature of interactions between normal photons and particle pairs in the hot plasma? What is it like, say, between one MEV and one GEV? Protons would be stable but not yet electrons. It must be that the antiprotons have annihilated since both stabilized and were free to seek their final equilibrium (???) . I do not see clearly here, because where is the balancing charge? What species are present, and what scattering characterizes the plasma?

[Norman Albers]

Klaynos, I'm sorry I did not pay attention specifically to your question. Remember the hydrogen ionization energy of 13.6 V? When things were hotter than that (a gas with average one ev energy per particle is about ten thousand degrees), few atoms were able to recombine, just like water held above freezing. Then as things cooled the electrons were able to stick to protons without being blasted off again. This is expressible as a rate process sort of thing: coming together and falling apart, think again of water molecules freezing. SO, light intereacts strongly with charged things; it disturbs them and they reflect or scatter photons. Thus the light is caught, in general, with the mass of particles, until plasma recombination. Then, fairly suddenly, hydrogen atoms condensed stably. Light was no longer impeded and set out freely, still of course bound to gravitational metrics. So what would have looked like a glowing plasma (how hot, what frequency?) ceased to glow and the light entered the phase of less intense interaction by ionization of already established atoms; later molecules H2.

[Norman Albers]

We are talking CP violation. What is the plasma like coming down in temp. from 1GEV?

[Norman Albers]

With all your loyal support I have been in the middle of the 'Fractional Photons' Hit Parade first page this week. Thanks, fans!!!

[Norman Albers]

While the preceding stages are not at all yet clear to me, we can say for sure that once plasma recombination occurred, there began a different history for quantized and fractional photons.

[sunspot]

During the expansion up to the hydrogen atoms, the innards of the universe were opague. However, the surface of the expansion has an open side into empty space. I don't think that the photons at the perimeter will remain stuck with such an open excape path. So energy is lost during the entire early opague expansion at the perimeter.

 

With the ratio of surface area/volume maximized at the beginning and lowering over time, the earliest opague expansion should actually lose the most radiation into empty space. When it becomes transparent even more gets lost. The material universe is only a fraction of its original stuff. This lost fraction may close the universe.

 

The idea of fractional quanta may not be that far fetched. When the hydrogen is still ioniized but not yet atomic the electrons are actually sharing with many protons in a giant pseudo-molecular state. Such a state could accommodate many fractional energy levels not defined by a single hydrogen atom.

[Norman Albers]

You say there is space outside of an energy-mass plasma or whatever, yet I have heard the opposite characterization, that there is no outside to this manifold. Can you speak further here? Also, once there are bound states, I have not so much to offer; those mechanics are well accomplished. I am speaking about what we assume as the construction of the radiation field. 'A priori', I say we of course observe quanta but they are defined by the 'vending machines' and not by the available coins. Unit photons have a probability of interaction not shared by lower fractionals.

[Norman Albers]

The particular question I am interested in has to do with interaction between the radiation field and charged entities. Can this be subsumed under the name 'Compton scattering'? Are these interactions dependent upon quantized photons? SUNSPOT, I hope to learn more from you. PS: I read that it is estimated rather at 500,000 years. Vis-a-vis decoupling, the things you say also make sense, at some point! To me a mass/particle is a condensate at a characteristic energy and their effects become important above and going down through that point. We are deep into the boiling virtual pot.

[Norman Albers]

After some Wikipedia study I see that Compton scattering is from bound electrons and so is not what I am seeking here. Rather, Thompson scattering as I see in some plasma cosmology (Wiki that) discussions. I guess I need to get to the relativistic scenario. In the range of 10 to 100 MEV it seems to me that protons would be 'mildly relativistic' (beta of a few tenths) while electrons have high beta.

[Norman Albers]

I see a limit to the usefulness of the term "phase", or "phase state", when describing electrons as energy. When we experience materials changing mechanical phase, we deal with ensembles of particular constituents. When we speak of radiation "condensing" into particle pairs, the constituents are photons which have no preferred size. The unique size of the electron speaks of the fundamental coupling constants and its geometry. We are left, as the cosmos cools, with electrons and light, but the light is cooling in average frequency. This does not happen with water and ice! Maybe with ice and vapor?